Tony's Week at Home
by NotARedhead
Summary: Because sometimes returning to work is the only way someone recovering from the plague can get any rest. Spoilers for SWAK & Twilight. Written to balance the angst meter. I own nothing except the idea and the original characters. All hail DPB.
1. Monday

**Tony's Week at Home**

**MONDAY **

He was home.

Tony never thought he'd be so happy to see the inside of his apartment as he was the day they brought him home from Bethesda. His lungs had cleared – mostly, and even though Dr. Pitt had _suggested_ that Tony remain another few days, Tony had improved enough that Pitt wasn't going to push it. Tony was just well enough and just bored enough to start annoying the staff at Bethesda, and they all figured that it might be in everyone's best interests for Tony to go home.

Tony walked up the stairs to his apartment and opened the door. He stood there, just savoring the experience. He was home. He resisted the urge to jump around the living room like a giddy Sigourney Weaver in "Working Girl", but that's kind of how he felt. Happy, giddy, slightly medicated, and home. Had he mentioned that he was home? He was. Home. He sighed.

Gibbs had been the one to actually drive him home, a drive Tony hardly noticed since he tended to doze off at regular intervals, but he didn't remember ever having felt as though he was going to fall out of the car. So that was a definite positive.

"You gonna stand in the doorway forever, DiNozzo?" Gibbs said, with gruffness in his voice but a smile on his face. "There are people behind you, you know."

"Sorry Boss," Tony said, as he walked into the apartment and let Gibbs and Ducky in behind him.

"Go flop on the couch," Gibbs ordered.

Tony did as he was told. His couch, his movies, his TV, his books, his rug, his lamp, his remotes, his stereo. He was happy. Some of it was the drugs, but most of it was just being happy. He was home, he was alive, and he'd beaten the plague. THE PLAGUE. A snippet of Monty Python flitted through his brain, but he ignored it.

It was true that he couldn't really take a deep breath without feeling a little 'ping' somewhere around his diaphragm, and he was so tired of Jell-o that he had already divested any stock he had in Kraft Foods, but his breathing would get better with time and he never had to eat gelatinous substances again, if he didn't want to. Life was good.

Ducky and Gibbs put down what they had been carrying and surveyed the apartment. It wasn't nearly as bad as they had expected. Tony didn't have a maid or a cleaning service, but what they could see from the kitchen certainly wasn't any more of a shambles than Gibbs' place. There were no dead plants hiding in corners, no "science projects" in the fridge. There was order, mostly, and a nice comfortable feel to the place. The two men were almost impressed.

Gibbs had carried in a couple of boxes of gifts Tony had received in the hospital, mostly books and photographs that had been populating his bedside table. They had donated all of the balloons – nearly a dozen – to the children's ward, with the exception of the ones Tony's frat brothers had sent. None of them thought that the large pink balloons in the shape of lips and legs and Playboy bunnies were appropriate for the hospital's playroom. Gibbs put them in a corner in Tony's bedroom, anchored by a small figure of Venus di Milo dressed in a poodle skirt that Abby had given Tony one year for Christmas. It looked appropriate somehow.

About a half-dozen people had sent flowers, but those had all been sent immediately up to the Maternity Ward. The only plant life that Tony had been allowed to keep was the pot of green and gold speckled ivy that had come from his father. Gibbs regarded the sturdy little plant in the dark polished wood planter with a shake of the head and a small smile. Whether his father had done it consciously or not, he was the only one who had sent something with no pollen or spores that could aggravate Tony's lungs.

As nice as the potted mums from the folks down in the Evidence Garage were, Dr. Pitt wouldn't allow them within six feet of Tony; the "all shades of purple" wildflower bouquet that had come from Abby had been admired from afar and then taken away; and even though they were certain that Kate and McGee had spent a fair amount on the bouquet of exotic tropical flowers (apparently hoping they'd remind Tony of Magnum PI), Pitt also had those removed, worried that the exotic plants would carry similarly exotic spores. Gibbs had to admit that the remaining pot of green and gold ivy did certainly fit better into Tony's brown, tan and polished hardwood surroundings than would the ornate vase of birds of paradise. Everyone had understood about the flowers, of course, and they all silently headslapped themselves for not thinking about pollen and spores and their effect on weakened lungs.

Next, Gibbs pulled out a stack of get well cards that was nearly three inches tall when piled on the kitchen table. Everyone at NCIS had sent one, including Director Morrow, Gerald, and someone named "Bobbi" from Personnel, who dotted her "i" with a little heart and hoped that Tony would "Get way better and feel awesome again soon! Kiss kiss." Gibbs rolled his eyes.

Also in the pile were cards from various members of Tony's extended family – a great aunt, two uncles, a couple of cousins, someone who had apparently been Tony's tutor in middle school, and even a family gardener, who hoped that he had made the right choice in steering Tony's father towards green plants rather than flowers, when the old man had come to him for advice on what to send his son. Well … that explained that.

The remnants of the fruit basket that had come from the guys at Baltimore PD were put in a wooden bowl on the kitchen table. Once Tony had graduated back to solid food, he'd eaten his way through several oranges (for the vitamin C), a couple of bananas (for the potassium), and enough apples a day to keep many doctors away. At least, that was the plan.

While Gibbs was unloading the gifts and other "get well" tokens, Ducky was similarly occupied with food and medications. He lined up the meds, with instructions and warnings, on the counter. They'd already gone over with Tony the consequences he would suffer should he choose to not utilize the marvels of modern medicine that had been prescribed and purchased for him. To push the point home, Ducky strode into the living room, where Tony was sitting on the couch not quite zoned out by a NASCAR race on ESPN, and handed him three pills and a cup of water. Tony looked up, opened his mouth to protest, saw Ducky's expression, thought the better of it, and downed the pills without so much as a sigh of protest.

"Nicely done, Tony," Ducky said with a smile.

"Thanks, Duck," Tony responded, with a smile that made him look slightly drunk but wholly and entirely pleased with himself. Ducky chuckled as he returned to the kitchen.

Once there, Ducky and Gibbs unloaded the last of the bags, stocking Tony's fridge and cabinets with enough food to get him through a few days, and probably more, considering how light Tony's appetite had been. Dr. Pitt had told them exactly what to buy, and it was heavy on things like soups and greens and light on things like pizza, pasta and red meat. It was only for a few weeks, everyone had reminded Tony, and Tony had begrudgingly allowed them to plan out his meals.

"I think that's it, Duck," Gibbs said, with a satisfied nod as he stowed the last of the bags and wiped off the countertop.

"Yes, Jethro," the doctor replied. "We seem to have gotten Anthony home in one piece and set him up for a restful week."

The men walked into the living room just in time to see Tony slowly slide sideways on the couch, having fallen asleep watching a rerun of "America's Next Top Model."

"He **must** be tired," Gibbs chuckled. He walked over to Tony and lightly shook him. "Tony," Gibbs said quietly, "time to go to bed."

"I don't think so, Boss," Tony said with a slight sleep-and-drug-induced slur. "You have to buy me dinner first." Then he giggled and pushed himself into a sitting position. Gibbs smiled down at him with a tolerant expression.

"Come on Tony," Gibbs said again. "Let's get you into bed."

Together, Gibbs and Ducky guided Tony into his room. Ducky helped the younger man out of his sweats and into a t-shirt and pair of pajama bottoms while Gibbs set up the next round of meds along with a glass of water and a box of just-in-case-you-hack-up-something-disgusting tissues on the bedside table. Tony's phone was charged and handy, in case he needed anything – all of his team's numbers had been programmed into the new phone, along with Pitt's, should he need them. Ducky and Gibbs would stick around for a few hours to make sure Tony was okay, but they had been assured that DiNozzo was able to take care of himself and didn't need to be fussed over.

Tony climbed into bed, sighing as he realized that these were his sheets, his pillows, his pajamas, his comforter, his bed.

"Thanks, Gibbs … Ducky," Tony said as he settled into a comfortable position. He coughed once or twice – a wet hacking cough that Pitt had assured them sounded worse than it was – and then made a fairly disgusting "clearing the nasal passages" sound that made both Gibbs and Ducky raise their eyebrows and take a step back, should Tony decide to go projectile.

"Sorry," Tony said with a sheepish grin. He coughed once more, lightly, and spit something out into a tissue. "Gunk," he said, inexplicably pleased with himself for getting said gunk out of his lungs. He dropped the tissue into the waiting waste basket, gave a sloppy salute to Gibbs and Ducky, sighed deeply and fell instantly asleep.

He was home.


	2. Tuesday

**TUESDAY**

It was just before 10 a.m. on Tuesday morning when Tony heard a tentative knock on his apartment door. He'd slept for 12 hours Monday night – give or take a coughing episode. He'd woken up about 6 a.m. and spent a good 45 minutes clearing his throat, hacking up phlegm, and coughing so much in one stretch that he gave himself a headache. He called Dr. Pitt around 8 a.m., just to make sure there wasn't something to worry about in all of that coughing. A tired but patient and fairly pleasant Pitt – considering he'd been woken up only two hours after he'd gotten out of a 7-hour surgical procedure – assured him that it was normal.

"It's your body's way of getting rid of all the accumulated fluids and other …" he yawned while searching for the word.

"Gunk?" suggested Tony, helpfully.

"Yes," Pitt laughed. "Gunk out of your system. Take your meds and go back to sleep," the doctor ordered. Tony did.

And then he heard it. The tentative tapping. It wasn't like he wasn't awake. It was 10 o'clock, after all. But he was so comfortable in bed. The tapping again. OK, he decided. He'd get up.

Tony sat on the side of his bed and stretched, drank the last of the water in the glass on his bedside table, cleared his throat with a couple of hacking sounds, and made his way to the front door.

"Yeah … I'm here," he said, with a rasp in his voice. "One second." He ran his hand through his hair, blinked a few times to try and look awake, and opened the door with a smile.

"Good mor ----" he began. Then, with eyes wide and a slightly shocked expression, "Dad."

"Hello Tony," said the man in the suit on the landing. (That phrase – "the man in the suit on the landing" – actually went through Tony's head. He thought it sounded like the opening of a Dr. Seuss book.) "How are you feeling?" his father said. "You sound like hell."

Tony cocked his head to the side and grinned slightly. "Nice to see you too," he said. "Come on in."

Tony's father walked in, followed by two women in nearly matching blue suits – except one had on a skirt while the other wore pants – and a fairly tall man in a black suit. Tony closed the door and turned around, surveying the assembled group.

"I think you know almost everyone in the entourage, don't you son?" DiNozzo Sr. said with a grin that was an older and more mature version of the one usually on Tony's face. The older man ran through a series of quick introductions.

"This," he said, indicating the brown-haired woman in the skirted suit, "is Debbie, my assistant. You've met her before."

Debbie looked at Tony, standing there in a t-shirt and pajama bottoms, barefoot and with hair that indicated he'd obviously just gotten out of bed, and smiled as she blushed slightly. "Mr. DiNozzo," she said.

"Hi Debbie," Tony replied. "Nice to see you again. Keeping my dad in line?"

"Not even remotely," she replied, with a look of regret. Tony chuckled.

"This," DiNozzo Sr. said, pointing to the slightly older woman in the pantsuit, "is Grace. She's Debbie's assistant and my liaison to the house staff."

Grace smiled and nodded. Tony did the same.

"And of course you remember Paul," Tony's father said, gesturing towards the man on his left.

"Dad," Tony said, acknowledging Paul and then looking back at his father. "Why did you bring me a butler?"

Tony's father sighed. "Oh, I don't know," he said. "I thought about some DVDs or maybe a book, but it's so hard to know which ones you don't already have. I knew you didn't have a butler." He smiled the 'patented DiNozzo smile' as Tony laughed, and then DiNozzo Sr.'s smile turned to concern as Tony began to cough.

"No," Tony gasped as he tried to talk between coughing. "I'm fine." His father moved towards him to help, but Tony waved him off. "Just gotta get this … " he coughed.

"Gunk out of your system?" Grace offered.

"Yeah," Tony said, his eyes twinkling in her direction. "Exactly." He finished the coughing fit, cleared his throat and accepted the bottle of water that Debbie seemed to procure out of nowhere.

"I appreciate the thought, Dad," Tony said, "but I'm good. As you can see, the place is relatively clean, and I like it kind of lived in." He looked at Paul. "No offense," he said.

"None taken," Paul replied. "Get the new Mustang yet?"

Tony chuckled. He reached over and tossed Paul some car keys that were on a hook by the phone. "Knock yourself out."

Paul glanced at DiNozzo Sr. and raised his eyebrows in a tacit question. "We'll be leaving at 1 p.m.," the elder DiNozzo said as Paul headed out the door. DiNozzo Sr. looked apologetically at Tony. "Sorry, son, but my afternoon is packed." Debbie and Grace nodded simultaneously.

"No problem, dad," Tony said. "I know it's a school day. Three hours is probably as long as we can stand each other anyway, don't you think?"

Tony's father smiled slightly. "Yes. That seems to be about the limit." He looked around the apartment, taking in the décor, style and cleanliness in one fell swoop. "It's a nice place," he said.

"Yeah," Tony replied. "It goes well with the plant."

"I'm afraid you'll have to thank Jorge for that," DiNozzo Sr. said. "That was his call. I picked out the pot though."

"It's pot?" Tony said, with a mock-alarmed look at the green & gold plant on the mantle. "I thought it was an ivy. I can't believe you sent me …"

Debbie and Grace hid their laughter as Tony's father cut him off with a light smack to the back of the head. The men smiled at each other.

"You have your mother's sense of humor," DiNozzo Sr. said.

"So I've been told," Tony replied.

Debbie and Grace headed out to the back deck to make phone calls, check e-mails, and give Mr. DiNozzo some time with his son.

"The assistant's assistant, Dad?" Tony asked with raised eyebrows. "A little overkill, don't you think?"

"Well, I wasn't sure when she'd get a chance to meet you," DiNozzo Sr. said, with just a bit of edge to his voice. "She's liaison to the house staff. I didn't want her to see you at the house one day and assume you were the new mechanic."

"Ouch," Tony said with a tight smile as he rubbed his jaw. "That was a direct hit."

The elder DiNozzo sighed and sat at the table. "Yes," he said, with a calmer and more level tone. "And perhaps unwarranted under the current circumstances."

It wasn't really an apology, but Tony knew it was the best he was going to get. There was a pause, and then the whole scene seemed to start anew. It was as if each man had hit an internal "reset" button and moved back into neutral territory.

Tony made some coffee and dug around in the refrigerator, looking for something suitable for breakfast. He wondered where all the food had come from, and then remembered Ducky and Gibbs from the day before. Tony's movements in the kitchen were punctuated by regular coughs and throat clearings, his father occasionally asking if he was all right, and Tony assuring him that he was.

They talked about family – Tony's father updating him on the conditions of various elderly relatives and reminding him about a cousin's graduation and an uncle's birthday. Tony dutifully made note and promised to send the appropriate cards and gifts. They discussed work – Tony summarizing the past few months into about a ten-minute sit-rep, and his father taking just a bit longer to give the highlights from his own office. They talked about football and about movies and about the news, Tony being rather proud to discover that he was a bit more clued into current events than his father. Working for a place that had the news on 24/7 had its advantages.

By one o'clock, Tony and his father had each had three cups of coffee, Tony had eaten half a bagel, half a banana, and had a glass of cranberry juice. The men were currently arguing about politics – Tony's father pointedly bringing up a long-standing disagreement about Tony running for office. When Tony reminded his father that you didn't have to have a political title to be considered a public servant and that solving murders and working to keep terrorists out of the US was perfectly legitimate public service as well, his father let out an exasperated sigh and gave up. Sort of.

"I just hate to see you waste your talents following someone else's lead all the time," DiNozzo Sr. said. Tony bristled. "I really am fine with you not going into the family business," his father continued, ignoring Tony's sarcastic look, "but you could do so much better for yourself."

"I'm doing fine, Dad," said Tony, looking squarely at his father. His father opened his mouth to say something and Tony cut him off. "I'm fine."

There was a beat of silence.

"You got the plague and nearly died," Tony's father said quietly. "That wouldn't have happened in …"

"Congress?" Tony said with a snort of a laugh. "Tell that to your pal Daschel. If you're trying to keep me safe, Dad, you'll have to look beyond politics. They have anthrax, guns, and crazies there too. At least in my profession, I'm armed and able to shoot back." A look at his father's face told Tony that he'd gone just a bit too far with that comment. He softened his voice a bit.

"I'm in a good place with NCIS, Dad," he said. "I'm a senior field agent. And I'm a good one." He started to say something else, but ended up coughing several times and taking another sip of water. "I'm fine," he said again. He wasn't sure if he was trying harder to convince himself or his father.

DiNozzo Sr. stood up. "I think we've hit our limit," he said with a tight smile that mirrored Tony's from earlier. He brushed off his pants and straightened the jacket he'd never taken off and the tie he'd never loosened.

Paul strode back in through the door, tossing Tony's keys on the counter. "Sweet," he said, smiling at Tony. "Very sweet." Tony acknowledged the compliment and put the keys back on the hook. "I filled the tank," Paul said, with a nod. Tony chuckled and looked at his father. "You've trained him well."

"I do what I can," his father said, both of them pushing past the recent disagreement and once again shifting down to neutral.

DiNozzo Sr. motioned for Debbie and Grace to come in off the deck. They gathered their files and Blackberrys and came back into the kitchen.

"You're sure you don't need anything," Tony's father said, as he surveyed his son's face and tried to determine whether it would be a good idea to send his personal physician by, just to take a look.

"I'm fine, Dad," Tony said, with another 'patented DiNozzo grin'. "I have a lot of friends who have made it their mission in life to take care of me." He saw his father's brow furrow with doubt. Tony continued, "I do not need Dr. Morris showing up on my doorstep later today. Or tomorrow. Or at all." He looked at his father with an almost scolding expression. "I'm being well taken care of," Tony repeated.

DiNozzo Sr. smiled at his son's intuition. "No Dr. Morris," the older man said. Tony bowed his head a bit as a thank you. And then he coughed yet another wet, hacking cough. "No Dr. Morris, yet," his father amended. Tony shook his head and smiled a smile that was designed to appease his father and get the whole entourage out of his apartment.

"Thanks, Dad," Tony said. "Don't work the staff too hard this afternoon."

Paul laughed a hearty laugh as he opened the door for the rest of the group. "Just how long have you known this man?" he said, with a grin.

The elder DiNozzo patted Tony on the shoulder and looked him square in the eye. "Take care of yourself," he said. "And call more often than twice a year, would you?"

"Phone works both ways, Dad," Tony said. The two men looked at each other for a second, and then DiNozzo Sr. headed out the door to the waiting car.

"Feel better soon," Debbie said, with a sincere smile.

"I promise," Tony said, with a smile in return.

Grace smiled at Tony as she followed Debbie out.

"Last chance," Paul said with a grin, as he took a tentative step out onto the landing. "Once I'm through this door, you're on your own."

Tony smiled. "I'll take my chances," he said. "Now get out of here and go do some real work."

Paul saluted smartly and, with a final "take care" and a wave, Anthony DiNozzo Sr. & Co. were on their way.

Tony closed the door. He was exhausted. He ate some cheese and crackers, took a quick, hot shower, straightened his bedroom, took his meds, grabbed an afghan from the closet, curled up on the couch, and fell asleep to "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit." He was still on the couch when Gibbs called to check up on him at 6 p.m.

"Yes, Boss," Tony said as he sat up and turned on a light to wipe away the grayness of dusk. "I had a bagel and fruit for breakfast, cheese and crackers for lunch, and I'm just now heating up some soup for dinner."

There was silence on the other end of the phone. Tony could actually feel Gibbs staring at him through the phone line. He sighed. Then he got up and walked into the kitchen, putting the soup container into the microwave and holding the phone up so Gibbs could hear the sound of the oven working.

"You happy?" Tony said, with a tired grin.

"Be sure you eat it, DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "You sound like you've been sleeping all day."

Tony laughed a light laugh, followed by a hacking cough. "Yeah … that's me, Boss. Just lazing around."

"You're sure you don't need anything," Gibbs said. Tony had a moment of déjà vu, thinking back to his father saying those exact same words earlier in the day.

"I'm fine, Boss," he said, the same answer he'd given his father.

"Good," said Gibbs. And then he hung up.

Tony did actually eat the soup, with a few crackers and a glass of milk and a small bowl of ice cream. He felt a lot better with food in his stomach, so he pulled out the laptop and checked his e-mail. There was two weeks worth of spam that he deleted, a bunch of get well wishes, a couple of comical forwards from Abby, a downloadable game from McGee, and two lengthy and hilarious e-mails from a friend who was currently working in Colorado for NORAD. After an hour or so at the computer, he was beat. By 9 p.m., he was heading back to bed.

Just as Tony was about to turn off the lights, his phone rang again. The screen said "Ducky." Tony picked up the phone and before the doctor even had a chance to say hello, Tony reported out. "Yes, Duck, I took the meds. I'm feeling better, and haven't been coughing nearly as much. I had a bagel and fruit for breakfast, cheese and crackers for lunch, and soup, crackers and ice cream for dinner. Now, I'm going to sleep. Thanks for checking up on me. G'night." He put down the phone, turned off the light, and sighed into the comfort of his bed.

On the other end of town, Dr. Mallard looked at his phone with a small smile. "Pleasant dreams, Tony," he said.


	3. Wednesday

**WEDNESDAY **

It was 9:30 a.m. on Wednesday when Tony's day began. The knock on the door came just as Tony was hacking the last of the morning phlegm out of his system. He felt better, but still had that raspy "morning breathing" that he hated.

"Hang on … I'm coming," he croaked out, as he slid on his socks out to the door. He had a momentary flash of Tom Cruise in "Risky Business" and made a mental note to do a little air-guitar later in the day, if he felt up to it. Tony opened the door to a DHL delivery man holding a box of substantial size. 'It's a B.O.S.S.', Tony thought with a chuckle. He envisioned Gibbs dressed as the dread pirate Roberts in "The Princess Bride."

Tony signed for the box, ignoring the DHL guy's once-over of him, standing there in his PJs and socks, with obvious bed-head and a just-a-little-too-pale complexion. "Thanks, man," Tony said, followed by a series of hacking coughs. The delivery man stepped back just a little too quickly, almost stumbling down the stairs.

"Dude," he said to Tony. "What do you have, the plague or something?"

Tony just stared at him and closed the door.

"Presents!" Tony said with glee. He put the box down on the kitchen table, forcing himself to wait to open it until after he'd taken his meds and had breakfast. Gibbs or Ducky would be calling soon, and he wanted to be ready. He was half-way through a bowl of shredded wheat with bananas when the phone rang. It's was three minutes after ten, and the phone screen read "Kate." That was a surprise.

"Katie!" Tony said, his mouth full of cereal. "To what do I owe the pleasure?"

"Hi Tony," Kate said, a bit startled. "You sound … good." He couldn't tell if she was happy about that, or if it kind of bugged her that he sounded good and wasn't at work.

"Well," he said, "it's early. I usually wait until later in the day to hack stuff up." He could imagine her face and the look of minor disgust that was on it. "What's up?"

"Gibbs is in MTAC and Ducky is swamped in Autopsy," she said. "They asked me to call and find out how you were doing." There was a pause. "How are you doing?"

Tony was momentarily disappointed by the fact that Kate herself didn't seem to care how he was, but he let it go. If it was busy at NCIS, she was probably trying to do three or more things at once, one of which was checking up on him. Besides, she'd stayed with him in Bethesda for nearly a week, keeping him company several hours each day and then going to the office every night to catch up on work. She deserved a Get Out of Jail Free card.

"Tell Gibbs and Ducky and anyone else who asks that I'm doing fine," Tony said, cheerfully. "And that they don't have to call me every day for a sit-rep. I'm taking my meds, eating healthy food …" Kate sniggered at that. "Hey!" Tony said, "I've got shredded wheat and a banana here, with a glass of orange juice and an apple-bran muffin. What did YOU have for breakfast, miss smarty-pants?" There was silence on the other end of the phone.

"Ah-hah!" Tony said, with a touch of smugness in his voice. "I thought so. Anyway … I'm good. Doing well. Coughing less. Bored out of my mind." His eyes moved to the still unopened box on the table with hope that its contents would assuage his boredom. "Tell them that I'm fine."

There was silence on the other end of the line and Tony wondered if Kate was taking notes, preparing to recite, word for word, what he'd just said.

"Kate?" Tony ventured. "You still there?"

"Yup … here, Tony," Kate said. "I'm sorry … just … well … I'm trying to listen to a conversation of McGee's while also talking to you."

"Really?" Tony said with interest. "What's going on?"

"I'm not sure," Kate said, conspiratorially, her voice dropping to a near-whisper. "I think he's got something going – a new girlfriend, maybe. He keeps dropping his voice and looking around to see if anyone is listening. I wish you were here – you could get it out of him."

"You wish I was there?" Tony teased. "Why Kate, I didn't know you cared." He grinned.

"I wish you were here because you're a better eavesdropper than me, Tony," Kate said in an exasperated tone. "That's not a ringing endorsement. It's not like I miss you or anything."

Tony laughed, which led to a short bout of light coughs, with just enough substance to sound worse than they were.

"If you're doing that for my benefit," Kate said, with a tinge of worry in her tone, "it's not working." She was a terrible liar.

"Nah," Tony assured her. "I'd have done that no matter who was on the phone." He could tell she was searching for a comeback, but again, he let her off the hook. "Anyway," he said, with a smile on his face and a cheerful tone, "thanks for checking up on me, Kate. I really do miss you guys."

"Yeah, Tony," Kate said, before she could stop herself. "We miss you too."

It took every bit of self-control Tony had not to pounce on that, but he figured that he'd let her off the hook twice already, what was once more?

"Thanks, Kate," he said again. "Don't work too hard." And then he hung up.

As Kate hung up her phone, McGee was looking at her incredulously. "You told him we missed him?" he said, his voice rising in pitch as he reached the end of the sentence. "Are you crazy? He'll hold that against us forever."

"Sorry, McGee," Kate said, crossly. "But we do miss him." McGee hung his head slightly. "And the man almost died," she continued. "The least we can do is let him know that we might be just a little bit glad that he didn't."

McGee opened his mouth to apologize, but Kate cut him off.

"Next time," she said, with a smile, "you do the 'check on Tony' call. If you can tear yourself away from whoever-she-is on the other line."

McGee reddened and turned his attention back to his computer just as Gibbs rounded the corner.

"Gear up!" he said. Then, he looked at Kate. "Well?" he asked, pointedly.

"He's awake, eating shredded wheat and bananas with orange juice and a bran muffin, he's bored, and he misses us."

"Good," Gibbs said with a hint of a smile, as he headed to the elevator, McGee and Kate on his heels.

Meanwhile, back at Tony's apartment, the breakfast dishes had been cleaned up, Tony had taken a shower and straightened his bed, and it was time to open "the box." You would have thought it was a bomb squad exercise, the way Tony carefully removed each line of tape and cautiously cut through the other binding. But this was a big deal. Tony didn't get presents often, and this one was unmarked. While everything pointed to it being a get-well gift from a far-flung friend ("far-flung friend, far-flung friend, far-flung friend" Tony repeated quickly, just to see if he could), there was just a sliver of a possibility that this was a not-so-nice surprise from some past perp with a grudge who was using Tony's convalescence as an excuse for a little payback.

Tony wiggled his fingers over the box like a magician getting ready to pull a rabbit out of a hat. He opened the flaps of the box, half expecting it glow. He saw a fitted piece of Styrofoam. 'Well', he thought, 'probably not a bomb then. Unless the sender was really anal.' Tony momentarily wondered if he'd ever done anything so horrible to McGee that McGee might create, pack and ship him a bomb. He made a mental note to let the secretarial pool know that he was only kidding and McGee wasn't gay.

Tony pulled an envelope off the top of the Styrofoam. He removed the card and saw a picture of a buxom woman in a nurse's uniform promising to help him "Get back in top form!" Tony grinned. He opened the card to find the signatures of six of his frat brothers from Ohio State. A hand-written note said, "Sorry we can't be there to nurse you back to health, but hopefully this will keep you busy until you're cleared for 'active duty' again." There were various off-color comments accompanying the signatures, along with one badly-drawn cartoon of an NCIS agent with a big "X" on the door behind him and a sign around his neck that said 'PLAGUE'. Tony took the card and added it to the collection he'd put up on the refrigerator. Then he pulled the Styrofoam top off and gasped with wonder at what was inside the box.

"Oh. My. God." Tony said, with shock, delight and anticipation. "An Xbox!" He was beside himself. Not only an Xbox, he discovered as he dug deeper, but an Xbox with all the latest accoutrements, including at least two dozen games. Tony stood up and went to the place in the living room where a picture of he and his frat brothers was hanging.

"My brothers!" he said, raising a fist in the air and then going through a set of odd "secret handshake" motions that probably made a lot more sense when there was someone else standing across from him doing the same thing. Then he bowed solemnly to the picture and went back into the dining room, humming the Ohio State fight song as he went.

It took about 45 minutes to set up the Xbox and properly connect it to all of the various components in the entertainment center. Tony read through the directions twice, just to make sure he'd done it all correctly. He didn't want to risk ruining his whole audio / visual / gaming system by being too eager and connecting everything too quickly.

Now came the big decision: which game first? "Kung Fu Chaos" or "Midtown Madness 3"? "Blood Wake" or "Quantum Redshift"?

By 2:30 p.m., Tony had sorted through all of the Xbox games and put them in categories: Action, Racing, Platform, Role-Playing. He'd just barely remembered to have lunch – a hastily thrown-together cheese sandwich with a glass of juice and a single carrot stick from the container on the bottom shelf. Game wrappers were everywhere, but instructions were neatly piled so that Tony could easily match strategy sheets with gaming software. He had pulled his computer into the living room and found the best "cheat" sites. And finally, after all the preparation, he selected his first game – "Tao Feng: Fist of the Lotus."

Tony made it fairly easily through the Versus mode and then moved into Quest. He lost all track of time as he fought through a series of rivals, one after another, sometimes emerging victorious, other times being beaten and pushed back to begin again. As he sat cross-legged on the floor in his pajamas, Tony looked like a nine-year-old who had climbed out of bed early on Saturday morning to watch cartoons. Except that he was the one controlling the cartoons. He was mesmerized by the clarity of the images and the action on the screen – he'd played video games before, of course, and he'd heard McGee talk about all his on-line geeky role-playing sites, but he'd never had so much fun in a virtual world as he was having within the fictional country of New China. In the game, he discovered that he could heal himself with his Chi – where was THAT when the plague hit, he wondered. His fighter swung around poles, flipped off walls, kicked other players into pinball machines, and performed all sorts of fight moves designed to diminish his opponent's fighting power. Utilizing hints he found on-line, Tony made it through challenge after challenge, fascinated by the relationship between his hands on the controls and the movements on the screen.

After three hours in the Fist of the Lotus, Tony pulled the game out of the controller, tossed it aside like a boxful of socks on Christmas morning and moved on to "Nightcaster: Defeat the Darkness." Just as Tony was beginning Arran's long and arduous quest to rid the village of Perth of the Nightcaster, the phone rang. It was 6 p.m. Tony rubbed his eyes and searched for the phone. He finally found it between the couch cushions.

"Hey Boss," Tony said, as he flipped open the phone to take the call. He was a little disoriented from his time in the virtual world, and Gibbs apparently caught the slightly confused tone of his voice.

"You okay, Tony?" Gibbs said, with some concern. "You sound a little strange."

"Nah, I'm good," Tony tried to reassure Gibbs, not particularly wanting his boss to make a little side trip to Tony's only to discover that he was glued to a video console as opposed to doing something more productive, like … recovering. "I dozed off, I guess; phone woke me up," he lied.

"You eat today?" Gibbs said, doubting Tony's explanation.

Tony chuckled. "Kate should have given you a full summary of my breakfast menu. I had a sandwich with some veggies and fruit for lunch." He winced as he made it past that tiny lie. Juice was liquid fruit, right? I mean, technically. And carrots are vegetables, even if all he ate was only one carrot. "I was just starting to think about dinner." Which wasn't too far from the truth. Now that his focus was somewhere other than the TV screen, he was feeling hungry.

"OK …" Gibbs said, tentatively. "You make sure to take your meds with dinner."

"Yes, Mom," Tony said with a grin that Gibbs could almost hear over the phone.

There was some mumbling in the background that sounded like Ducky. "Ducky wants to know how the cough is," Gibbs said.

"Haven't really coughed all day, Boss," Tony said, as he realized that he hadn't. Of course, all it took was the suggestion, and Tony felt the familiar tickle in his throat and the slight tightening in his chest. He coughed a few raspy coughs and then cleared his throat. "Until now," he finished. "But seriously," Tony added quickly, before Gibbs had time to interject a comment, "that was my first coughing spell since breakfast." There was silence. "Honestly, Boss. I promise."

"OK," Gibbs said again, and Tony breathed a sigh of relief. "Go get some dinner – hot food," Gibbs ordered. "Call if you need anything."

Tony had gotten as far as "On …" in his standard "On it, Boss" reply before Gibbs had snapped his phone closed ending the call.

Tony shook his head to clear the cobwebs and slowly worked his way up to a standing position. His legs were cramped from being in the same position for so long, and he had small muscle aches in his hands from the controller. He blinked a few times to focus and moved his head from side to side to work the kinks out of his neck. "I gotta pace myself," Tony said, as he stumbled into the kitchen.

Cooking dinner just didn't sound like something he had the desire to do, and Tony found his attention drawn to the selection of take-out menus in the basket by the phone. Gibbs had said "hot food." Pizza was hot food. Wings were hot food. Hot wings were very hot food. Tony grinned and dialed the number.

An hour later, Tony was back in the living room, perfecting his aim in order to use Arran's magical energy to destroy the swarms of beasts, demons, and other vile creatures populating the realm. The pizza place had delivered a pizza, breadsticks, wings (with celery, Tony noted, making sure to remember to stress "vegetables" in his next report-out), and soda. He could not believe how good it all tasted. It was as if he was discovering pizza and chicken wings for the first time.

After finally making it through all of the significant stages of Arran's life, not to mention conquering a fairly nasty gang of ice beasts, Tony moved on to "Blinx: The Time Sweeper." By the time Ducky called at 9:30 p.m. to check on his cough and wish him 'pleasant dreams', Tony was far more worried about rescuing the kidnapped princess and fighting the Time Monsters than he was about his medical prognosis. Thankfully, Ducky just assumed Tony had been woken from an odd dream about time crystals and ancient ruins, and the coroner went off on a tangent about his own childhood dreams, landing on one where he explored other eras and realms via the use of a time machine that he'd built with two chaps from school. Tony barely heard a word of it, but managed to thank Ducky for the call, wish him a good night, hang up the phone, grab another slice of pizza and make it through the canyon and into the caves all in one fluid motion.

At 11 p.m., a fleeting notion that he should be thinking about getting some sleep ran through Tony's mind. He considered it, but then … wait! … was that the kidnapped princess? YES!


	4. Thursday

**THURSDAY**

Thursday morning dawned far too early for Tony. It was his own fault. No one had forced him to stay up until 3:30 a.m. playing "Azurik: Rise of Perathia." Still, when you have a new toy and you don't have to be at work in the morning, you want to play. He was paying for that now.

It was just after 10 o'clock, and Tony's phone was ringing. He toyed with the idea of just letting it go to voicemail, but he knew it was probably either Gibbs or Ducky, checking up on him and making sure he was taking his meds and eating sensibly. If he didn't answer, either they or an ambulance would be over within 15 minutes, and he didn't think he could take that right now. Tony didn't plan on telling them about the Chinese food he'd ordered and eaten at 1 a.m. between bouts of "Halo 2" and "Crimson Skies: High Road to Revenge." He'd punished himself enough; he didn't need a lecture from them. He picked up the phone, trying to sound as awake and healthy as possible.

"Hey, Boss," Tony said, with a lightness in his voice that belied the fact that he was suffering from lack of sleep and a serious food hangover, not to mention still recovering from the plague.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said. "How're you doing?" It occurred to Tony that Gibbs' tone of voice when he asked how Tony was doing had changed over the four days he'd been home. Back on Monday, it was all soft and caring and he was "Tony"; now it was Thursday, he was "DiNozzo" again, and it was all business.

"Um … good, Boss," Tony said. "You?"

"I'm not the one who's sick, DiNozzo," Gibbs replied. Tony could tell that his boss was busy – probably reading a computer screen and going through one of Kate's reports at the same time he was calling. Tony felt a little guilty for not being there to handle his part of the work load. "You taking your meds?" Gibbs continued.

"Yeah, Boss," Tony confirmed. He stifled a cough – his first of the day. "Just about to." There was silence on the other end. "I … um … just woke up," Tony said, feeling somehow like an errant kid who had overslept.

"Good," Gibbs said, obviously distracted by something. "Sleeping in is probably good for you right now."

'Yeah', thought Tony. 'Especially when you're coming off a 13-hour junk food and Xbox marathon'.

"Don't get used to it," Gibbs continued.

"Everything okay, Boss?" Tony asked, tentatively. "You sound a little pre-occupied."

"Nothing for you to worry about," Gibbs said. "Just get some rest …"

"Take my meds, and eat something healthy. I know," Tony finished the sentence. Gibbs chuckled.

"Tell everyone hello for …" Tony began.

"Will do," Gibbs said, briskly, as he hung up the phone. Tony sighed.

Tony wandered out into the living room and was slightly appalled at what he saw. An open pizza box with half a slice barely balanced on the edge was on the floor under the coffee table; six empty cans of Mountain Dew were stacked in a small pyramid on the side table; two Chinese food containers were just to the left of the pyramid, leaking some sort of liquid onto the table; a half-eaten piece of celery had dripped the last of its bleu cheese dressing on the carpet. An afghan and two pillows were tossed haphazardly on the floor amidst some pizza crust bits; Xbox cases and the cellophane that had encased them were littered everywhere; a pair of socks was crumpled in a ball near the TV. The only thing that seemed in perfect order was the entertainment center, which was nicely organized with all the various game components – neat and tidy. Tony had to admit it … he was an Xbox addict. "Hi, Tony", he heard the others in the Xbox Anonymous meeting saying back to him.

He headed to the kitchen to make some coffee and grab something for breakfast that was less harmful to his system than half a slice of cold pizza or left-over chow mein. He coughed a bit as he finished waking up, but didn't really have much to complain about in the "recovering from the plague" department. Tony had been relatively cough-free the day before, and his coughs now were like remnants of the coughs he'd had on Tuesday. Like little left-over bits of plague that were trying to take hold again, but losing their grip before they could do any damage. He had a small bowl of oatmeal and some fruit, took his meds, and felt a little better. Then he grabbed a trash bag, and quickly cleaned and straightened the living room before hopping in the shower.

By noon, the apartment was looking like its normal self, and Tony had hidden the Xbox in a back corner of the entertainment center so as not to lead himself into temptation. He was showered, dressed, and feeling pretty healthy, all things considered. He was mentally going over his lunch options when there was a knock on the door.

Tony froze. The first time this had happened, he'd opened the door to his father; the second time, it was the delivery guy with the Xbox. Both visitations had left him exhausted. He walked into the kitchen and tentatively cracked the door open.

"Hi Tony!" came a chorus of high-pitched voices. Tony smiled in appreciation at the vision standing before him. Bobbi, from Personnel, was there, along with two of the evidence check-in techs – the ones that Tony (and, although he'd never admit it to anyone, McGee) referred to as "Baggie Bunnies."

"Well, hello ladies," Tony said, giving them a dazzling smile that made them smile even more brightly. His brow furrowed a bit. Were they actually dressed as _nurses_?

"We're here to make you all better!" Bobbi bubbled. Tony had just the very beginning of a hint of a thought of a headache starting in the back of his skull. But he ignored it and admired the women's' costumes.

"Then I guess you'd better come in, Nurse Bobbi," Tony said, stepping back to let them all into the apartment. He wasn't necessarily sure he wanted _all_ of them in the apartment – they seemed just a little too eager – but he didn't want to hurt their feelings and he certainly didn't want to leave them standing on the doorstep.

"This is Trisha," Bobbi said, pointing to the redhead on her left, "and this is Ann," she said, giving a nod to the blonde on the right. Tony continued smiling. "We're here if you need anything." He smiled some more, not sure what to say. Bobbi's face fell.

"The nurse costumes are too much, aren't they?" she said, looking down at her party-store-grade nurse's miniskirt, white tights and white patent leather shoes. "I told Trisha they'd be over the top, but she insisted."

"No," Tony said, honestly. "They're great. You guys look like you're just what the doctor ordered." All three of them brightened instantly. There was another knock on the door.

"That's probably Greta and Jeri from the word processing pool," Ann said, cheerfully. "They found out we were coming to see you and insisted on joining us."

Tony opened the door to see two more women, dressed in scrubs with toy doctor's kits, on the landing.

"You must be Greta and Jeri from the word processing pool," Tony said, smoothly and with a drop-dead grin. They both smiled brightly at being recognized and joined the others inside.

"So, Tony," Bobbi said. "Is there anything you …" She stopped and gasped, pointing to the refrigerator, where all of Tony's get well cards were displayed. He'd put them all up with magnets, to remind himself that people cared enough to send the very best. "That's my card!" Bobbi exclaimed to the others. "You kept it!" she said, as she looked with wonder at Tony. It seemed to be lost on her that he had apparently kept all of his cards, and that hers was one of several dozen on the fridge.

"Of course I did," he said. "I really appreciate that you sent it." And that was sincere. He truly did appreciate anyone who took the time to send him a get well card. There was a moment of silence as everyone looked at the card.

Then Greta said, "Is there anything you need Tony? Your wish is our command." They all smiled.

"Well," Tony said, tentatively, "I was thinking about lunch. Anyone hungry?"

The next hour or so passed as Bobbi, Greta, Jeri, Trisha and Ann poked around Tony's kitchen and assembled a lunch buffet. It was a small kitchen for five women, but they all wanted to be involved somehow, so Tony just sat at the table and watched appreciatively. Every time Bobbi or Ann had to reach for something, their little white mini-skirts hiked up a bit and Tony could see shapely legs and little white tap shorts underneath. And Geri bending over to get things out of the crisper drawer of the fridge was ... well … let's just say that Tony would never quite look at the word processing pool the same way again. Before long, there were salads, sandwiches, crudités and fruit set out in a cold buffet on Tony's counter. They sat and ate, the girls doing most – no, all – of the talking, complaining about bosses, discussing new dress code policies, and continuing what was obviously an on-going discussion about Gerald's 'availability'. Tony smiled and shrugged when asked, partly because he had a mouthful of turkey sandwich, but mostly because … well … he didn't know.

After lunch, Trisha and Jeri stayed in the kitchen to clean up, while Bobbi, Greta and Ann led Tony into the living room. They made a big show of getting him settled on the couch, and then asked if there was anything else they could do. Tony suggested a movie, and they all agreed. Tony had an overwhelming urge to put in "Lolita," but decided his system couldn't handle it and settled on "Nurse Betty" instead. It seemed appropriate.

Over the next hour and a half, the bevy of nurses around him got bored with the film and slowly moved back into the kitchen to do whatever it is five women do when they're bored. Tony wasn't sure if he should be relieved or annoyed that they'd left him, apparently finding each other's company more interesting than his, but every time they erupted in laughter or said, "I know!" in unison, he was content to watch Dr. Kinnear try to deal with Nurse Zellweger. At one point, Tony considered trying to sneak into his room and curl up on his bed without anyone noticing. But he wasn't sure what message, exactly, that would send. So, he just sat quietly, trying to figure out how five perky nurses in his apartment suddenly became a bad thing.

"When the gods want to punish us, they answer our prayers," Tony thought with a sigh.

As Tony sat on his couch and watched the women – no, Kate, sorry … but these were girls, he decided; in fact, they were girls in the most girly-girl sense. As Tony sat on his couch and watched the girls chatter and giggle and trade whatever information they were trading, while occasionally sneaking glances at him, Tony felt like a chaperone at a slumber party or the handsome professor during study hall. The girls would look at him and then whisper and then giggle – a pattern that was repeated over and over and over again. At first, Tony played along.

"What are you all talking about?" Tony's sing-song voice asked as he snuck over to their little group, making believe he was stealthy and about to pounce. Squeals and giggles would follow, and the girls would nearly melt when he smiled at them.

"Oh, Tony," Bobbi said, "it's just 'girl talk' – nothing you'd be interested in." They all laughed and then, he swore, they batted their eyes.

"Oh, but I _am_ interested," he said, with another grin that caused sighs. "I have a right … in fact, I have a _need_ to know what you're talking about in my dining room." It was a fake scolding – a make-believe interrogation. And the girls adored it.

Then, suddenly, it became very important to him to discover what it was they were discussing. He was getting tired of the game. He sent a silent prayer up to Camillus of Lellis, the patron saint of both sick people and nurses, seeking some sort of divine intervention. All those years of memorizing the saints in Sunday school had to be good for something. Nothing came.

Tony decided that he had two choices. He could sit and make believe he was interested, while hovering in order to delight the girls, and then shoo them out before dinner time; or he could simply tell them to leave and permanently incur the wrath of every female secretary, assistant, and evidence processor in the building once it got around how mean and ungrateful he was. He was just about to resign himself to the first option when there was another knock on the door. The girls looked up expectantly. Tony hung his head, stood and thought, 'Who else could possibly be coming to join them?' It was, after all, a work day. How much support staff could NCIS spare at one time? He shuffled slowly to the door, took a deep breath, and pulled it open with the best smile he could muster.

Tony almost cried with happiness and relief when he saw Terri and Liz standing on the doorstep. He had allies. People on his side. Soldiers in his "getting people out of my apartment" war. He looked to the heavens and said a whispered 'thank you' to Saint Camillus.

Terri and Liz were both about Tony's age, and each of them had lived near him in previous apartment complexes – he'd known Liz the longest, but was good friends with both of them. The two women hadn't met each other until the year they'd both happened to invite Tony to Thanksgiving dinner and he decided it would be more fun for him to invite them both to his house than it would be to choose between them. It had been a great day – good food, good friends, good football, and a hysterical running commentary by Terri during the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. Since then, the two women had banded together as a kind of tag-team support system for Tony. They were like the sisters he never had, and he loved it. They kept him fed during stake-outs, made sure he had a place to go on holidays, and took care of him if he got shot or injured or just had a bad day. In return, Tony helped the two women through car problems and boyfriend troubles, was their sounding board for ideas and complaints, and acted as the occasional last-minute date if one of them was "between boyfriends" and needed someone to escort them to a party or gathering.

Tony realized that he hadn't talked to either Terri or Liz for at least six weeks, and he couldn't figure out how they'd even known he was sick. Terri let it slip that she'd done some checking up on him when she hadn't heard from him in a while – the benefit of working at the Pentagon, and Liz mentioned that she'd run into Dr. Pitt at one of the local hospitals where she was a lab tech and he had privileges.

Tony laughed. "Nice work," he said, as he ushered them into the growing party. "I can't believe it took you guys until Thursday to get here."

"Oh, we talked about it," Terri said. "We figured Gibbs and Ducky would be in control on the first day and then your family would make it here on Day 2. That gave you a day home alone before we showed up to save you from yourself."

'Wow', Tony thought. 'They're good.'

The next hour or so passed by in a blur. After receiving a clear indication from Tony that he'd really had enough of the slumber party going on in his dining room, Terri and Liz gathered the gang of five together and told them that they were probably just a bit too much for Tony's still-recuperating system. Liz tossed in some medical jargon and said that for Tony's own good, the women should probably cut this visit short and come back when he was a little stronger. They all "totally" understood. Bobbi promised Tony that they would all come back soon and reminded him that if he needed anything, all he had to do was "pick up the phone and _buzz_ me," with a wink and a little extra emphasis on "buzz." Tony smiled and promised he would. Trisha, Jeri, Greta and Ann all repeated the sentiment, trying to out-wit each other by finding new and more suggestive words for "buzz". Tony smiled tolerantly at each one of them as they paraded past him and out the door. He kissed each one on the cheek, much to their delight. Ann was the only one sly enough to turn her head quickly at the last minute and receive a kiss on the lips. The other four girls gasped.

"Ann!" Trisha exclaimed in a frantic whisper. "He's got the PLAGUE!" The other girls put their hands up in front of their open mouths, and Ann looked at Tony with wide, startled eyes.

"It's okay, Ann," Tony said in his most comforting voice. "I'm not contagious." She furrowed her brow, trying to decide if he was telling the truth. "I promise," he said, soothingly. "Nothing to worry about. I wouldn't lie to you about something like that, would I?" He smiled. She melted. Then she ran down the stairs to join the other girls, where she was probably going on and on about how she had tricked Tony DiNozzo into kissing her.

Tony didn't really care. They were gone. He was free.

By the end of the day, Tony was, once again, totally relaxed. Liz monitored Tony's vital signs, cajoled him into taking his meds ("But I'm feeling better, Liz, really." "I don't care; take them."), and set him up back on the couch with a heating pad for his chest and enough creature comforts to keep him comfortable for a couple of hours. When Ducky called at 6:30 p.m. to check up on Tony, Liz took the call and passed along the required information, then chatted for nearly an hour with the coroner, trading stories about odd cases and medical mysteries. Tony napped.

Meanwhile, Terri was out re-stocking Tony's fridge and pretty much doing any errand he'd needed done. Tony felt guilty sending her out for the dry cleaning and accumulated mail – which the post office had stopped delivering while he was in the hospital and held at the main branch – and even worse when he called her at the grocery store begging like a five-year-old for ice cream. She had to go to three different stores to find the exact type of mint chocolate chocolate chip he was craving. But it wasn't until he mentioned that his car was really looking a little grungy that Terri switched to a tone of voice that indicated Tony might be dangerously close to stepping over the "taking advantage" line. Terri actually did take the car to Tony's favorite car wash and detailer, but Tony knew he was going to pay for that at some point.

The two women stayed for dinner – a delicious and healthy pasta primavera that everyone had a part in preparing. Liz cleaned the kitchen while Terri changed the sheets on Tony's bed and quietly disposed of the "kiss" and "Playboy" balloons, which had deflated somewhat and were lying forlornly on the bedroom floor. Tony, for his part, dozed on the couch watching old westerns on Turner Movie Classics. Once everything was done, Terri and Liz each dropped a kiss on Tony's forehead and let themselves out.

It was 10pm, and Tony's place was clean, quiet and blessedly empty. He climbed into his newly-made bed, with its fresh, crisp sheets, pulled up the newly dry-cleaned and fluffed down comforter, took the last of the meds that had been left for him on the dusted and polished bedside table, and slipped into a blissful sleep, making a mental note to find out when Terri and Liz's birthdays were so that he could pay them back with flowers, chocolate and cashmere.


	5. Friday

**FRIDAY**

It was 11 a.m. on Friday when the first knock came on the door. Tony felt great. He'd been up since 9:30 a.m.; he'd had breakfast, read the paper, showered and dressed, and had been the one to call Gibbs and report out on his morning, instead of waiting for Gibbs to call him. Tony had enjoyed that – getting one up on Gibbs. Gibbs had been surprised, but also sounded distracted, so Tony kept it short and sweet and hoped everyone would have a good day. He coughed once or twice for good measure, just so Gibbs would remember that Tony wasn't so much slacking as he was still recovering from the plague, but the coughs were really more for show than anything else. These nights of uninterrupted sleep and the healthy food and the meds were all working together to make Tony feel pretty darn good. He wasn't ready to run a 10K or spend 18 hours in the field, but he was getting there.

And now, it was 11 a.m. on Friday morning, and Tony bounded to the door to find out who would be entertaining him today.

"Do you have a personal relationship with God?" he heard, as he opened the door. Tony smiled and thought of Terri coming back from the auto detailer the day before. Traffic had been terrible, the detailer had been backed up, and she'd been stuck for an hour, waiting for his car with a bunch of lecherous older men having their Cadillacs prepped for the weekend. She'd walked in with a smile and a fairly pleasant hello, but she'd given him that "look."

'Anthony', Tony thought to himself, 'this is your cosmic scorecard, balancing itself.' And so he invited the two young men from the local Jehovah's Witness Hall in for coffee and apple-bran muffins. They were nice enough, but after two hours of discussion about the forces at work that had made Tony sick and then the counter-forces that had made him well again and what higher cause he had been kept alive for, Tony was almost glad to see the Girl Scout troop come strolling up his sidewalk with a wagon full of cookies.

The whole day passed like that. Jehovah's Witnesses, Girl Scouts, canvassing volunteers for local political candidates, home-school kids selling candy for a field trip to some presidential library or another, people passing out flyers to have a new stop light put on the corner by the bus stop. Tony wondered where all these people had been Wednesday, when he'd needed something – anything – to distract him from his Xbox obsession or yesterday, when he'd needed to be rescued from Bobbi and the Nursettes. And then he wondered why the adults weren't at work and why the kids weren't in school. By 4 p.m., Tony had had more people come to his door in one day than he got trick-or-treaters on Halloween.

Finally, the last of the neighborhood visitors had gone, and the apartment was quiet again. Tony had just flopped back on the couch, with a bowl of ice cream and a banana, when the phone rang. It was too early for Gibbs or Ducky to be making their evening check-up call, and the ID screen on the phone said "international call". He flipped open the phone and tentatively said hello.

"You caught the plague," he heard. It wasn't a question, it was a statement, and it was said with a little bit of emphasis on the word 'you' and in the same dry, disbelieving way that his father had said, "you got an A in economics" when Tony was in college.

"Paula," Tony said with an amused lilt to his voice. "What a delightful surprise." He almost meant it.

The connection had some static, but he could clearly hear samba music playing in the background.

"You're calling me from the dance club, aren't you?" Tony said with a smile. "You just can't get me out of your mind … I know."

She snorted a laugh. "I'd heard a rumor, Tony," she said, dismissing his comments. "I just had to call and find out if it was true or not." There was a pause as she took a drink of whatever she was drinking – probably a Cosmo, Tony thought. "So you really caught the plague?"

"I didn't so much catch it as it was forced upon me," Tony said. "A slightly loopy pharmaceutical exec sent an envelope of plague to NCIS so that we'd reopen a rape investigation that involved her daughter."

There was a pause – a slight delay with the connection. "Did you catch the rapist?" Paula asked, always the agent first and the caring friend second.

"Turns out the girl wasn't raped; she made it up," Tony summarized. "So …"

"You caught the plague for nothing," Paula filled in. "Nice work." She laughed, although Tony couldn't tell if she was laughing at him or at someone in the dance club.

"Yeah, Paula," Tony said, a little too sharply. "I nearly died for no reason at all."

There was a pause, and then the background music faded farther into the background and Paula's voice came out much clearer. She'd obviously moved outside or, at least, away from the middle of the dance floor.

"I'm sorry, Tony," she said, sounding slightly inebriated but sincere. "I only just found out from a guy who came in from Norfolk this afternoon. Seriously. I'd have called earlier if I'd known." She paused. He said nothing. "Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah," Tony said, flatly. "I'm fine. Getting better every day." Then, because he wanted things to be normal again, "I won't be able to dance circles around you like last time – at least, not for a while – but I've been assured that I'll make a full recovery." He emphasized the word "full." He smiled when he said it, and you could tell.

Paula teased him back. "You dance circles around me?" she said. "I don't think so. You must still have a fever."

"Only when I'm near you," he flirted. This was fun, but a little tiring. It was hard for him to maintain the tempo when they weren't face to face. She also had a slight advantage here. She had alcohol.

"Well, then, you'll have to stay away," she kidded, "for your own well-being, of course." She'd had just enough drinks to think that they were both enjoying the conversation.

"Of course," he bantered. "You know," he continued, "you should probably get back inside – I'm sure there are at least a half-dozen petty officers on your dance card, not to mention the new guy who just came in from Norfolk this afternoon. Don't want to keep them waiting."

She laughed. "I'd say 'wish you were here', but …" she began.

"We'd both know you didn't mean it," he completed the thought. He was still smiling, and he hoped that hadn't come out with too much bitterness. If it did, she didn't acknowledge it. Maybe she was letting him off the hook. Maybe it was just her walking back into the club and switching focus. There was a beat of silence, and her voice came back, a more serious tone than before.

"So … you're all right," she said. It wasn't a question, but a statement. She needed him to confirm her intel.

"Yes," Tony said. "I'm all right." There was another pause. She started to say "Good," but he jumped in first. "Thanks for calling, Paula," he said, with 60 sincerity and 40 please-get-off-the-phone. "I appreciate it."

"Like I said," she began, "if I'd have heard about it earlier …"

"If you'd heard about it earlier," Tony said, "I'd have been unconscious when you called."

She laughed. "Just my luck."

He chuckled and smiled. "Have a nice night, Paula. Don't do anything I wouldn't do." And then he hung up the phone. He hadn't meant to hang up on her, really, but he didn't want to play the game right now. He was tired. How he could go from "relaxed on the couch" to "totally exhausted" so quickly was beyond him. Maybe he wasn't getting better as quickly as he thought he was.

It was nearly dinner time, but he really wasn't hungry. Maybe he'd be motivated to eat something when Gibbs or Ducky called and ordered him to eat something. Right now, he just needed a nap. Tony brought a pillow and a blanket into the living room and got comfortable on the couch. Kate had given him the soft fluffy snowman-covered blanket last year for Christmas as a gag gift. It was totally out-of-place in his masculine apartment, but its softness and warmth had turned it into one of his favorite things. He'd never really gone through the "baby blanket" phase as a kid – preferring towels and pillowcases that could be made into super-hero capes – which perhaps explained his attachment to the snowman throw. He told Kate that he'd re-gifted the blanket to a cousin with a newborn, but he'd actually kept it, hidden on the top shelf in his linen closet. He brought it out when he was sick and it almost always helped him feel better.

As he stretched out on the couch, he picked up the remote and clicked on HBO. "Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl" was just starting. Tony had seen the film a dozen times, and had a DVD of it in his collection. It was a nice, familiar film for him to doze off to. He didn't have to worry about finding out how it ended.

* * *

It seemed like only seconds had passed when Tony opened his eyes. He felt rested, but strange … as if he should be on guard. Suddenly, he realized that he was no longer on his couch. He was sleeping on the floor. Had he fallen? Rolled over in his sleep and landed on the floor? He shook his head and looked around. He was lying on a wood floor. His apartment had a wood floor. OK … so far, so good. Then he looked up, and saw a black 'Jolly Roger' flag flying above him. His stomach lurched as he nearly rolled the width of the ship. Wait. THE SHIP?

Tony jumped to his feet and looked around. He was on a pirate ship. Not pirates in the "we're stealing movies and trading them on-line" sense, but in the "pillaging and plundering the high seas" sense. He carefully explored his new surroundings, wondering why it was suddenly so uncomfortable to walk. His breathing, oddly, was fine. Walking, however, kind of hurt. He looked down and realized why. It was the boots – thigh-high, with a cuff that folded back down almost to his knee. The boots also had a slight heel, which seemed really impractical on a wet wooden floor. Tony chuckled, wondering what Gibbs would have to say if someone showed up on a Navy destroyer in thigh-high leather boots. Surveying the rest of his wardrobe, Tony realized that he was in skin-tight black leather pants – 'Ah,' Tony thought. 'These are going to chafe.' – and a puffy shirt that would have given Seinfeld a run for his money. He did, however, have a sword on his belt, along with a knife – Marine Rule #9 apparently valid for pirates as well.

Just as Tony was thinking that he either needed a psychiatrist or an alarm clock – he hadn't yet decided if he was crazy or dreaming – another form came up the starboard side of the vessel, making a beeline for the ship's wheel. Tony blinked twice. It was … it was GIBBS. Wearing a blue captain's jacket and a dark broad-brimmed hat, sporting both a feather in the back and an "NCIS" logo on the front. He was carrying not a cup of coffee, but a cup of sliced green apples.

"DiNozzo!" Gibbs said. "About time you woke up. Go downstairs and help Abby."

Abby? Abby was here? "On it, Boss … uh, Captain," Tony said as he headed into the galley.

Abby was busy going over maps and charts and barely acknowledged him when he walked in. "This compass is giving me trouble," she complained. "Cap'n said you could fix it." She stood, turned to him, and held the instrument out. Tony reached out to take it, and stopped mid-motion as he looked at the creature in front of him.

Abby's tattoos had somehow morphed one into the other, until her entire body – all the parts he could see, anyway – was totally covered in artwork. There were ships and faces, maps and symbols, sea creatures and monsters – some in black & white, some in color. She was wearing a tight black leather bodice and a flowing skirt of what looked like rough silk. On her feet were boots that were laced up past the mid-calf area that Tony could see.

Abby looked him up and down at the same time he was regarding her. "Nice boots," she said with a smile. "Think you can fix this compass?"

"I'm not really good with mechanical things," Tony stammered. "Maybe you should ask McGee."

She looked at him as if he had sprouted gills. "You want me to ask the captain's monkey to fix the compass?" she asked. A small monkey with an NCIS cap jumped from the top of a cabinet onto Abby's shoulder. "Never mind, I'll get Kate to do it."

Seconds later, Kate walked into the room. "Did I hear my name?" she said, smiling at Abby. She glanced at Tony. "It's about time you woke up. I can't believe Cap'n Gibbs let you sleep as long as he did." Tony stared, open-mouthed.

"What?" Kate said with annoyance.

"You … look … amazing," Tony said. She did. Her hair was long and dark and filled with waves and curls Tony didn't remember Kate having. The peasant-style top she wore just barely concealed ample breasts that Tony also didn't remember Kate having. Her dark crimson skirt was tied up around her knees, and he could see brown knee-high boots covering her lower leg. She had a locket around her neck and a dagger at her waist.

Kate looked at him, with a roll of the eyes and an exasperated sigh. "Of course I do, Tony. It's your dream. You always make me sexy in your dreams."

At that moment, a bell sounded – loudly and in repetition. "We're being attacked!" Abby yelled, quickly gathering up the maps and documents on the table and sliding them into a secret compartment underneath. McGee the monkey scurried off to hide.

"All hands and full weapons!" Kate yelled. She looked back at Tony. "Come ON!" she urged. He followed her up to the deck.

Gibbs was there, along with someone who looked a lot like Ducky, except that he had wild hair and an eye patch and his mouth was sewn shut. Tony looked at Kate.

"It's punishment," she said with a shrug. "Cap'n'll take 'em out in another day or two." Tony stared.

As they rounded the mast, they looked where Gibbs and Ducky were looking and saw a swarm of snowmen coming over the bow, armed with what looked like toy doctor's kits. Two Girl Scouts were bringing up the rear flank, along with a female pirate who looked like Tony's father's assistant Debbie. Her Blackberry was glowing like an ice beast's energy wand. Abby, Kate, Gibbs and Ducky were in full battle mode, impaling the snowmen with swords, daggers and other weapons. Coal and carrots were flying everywhere. Ducky decapitated one snowman, sending the enemy's head flying into the sea with a sickening 'plop'; it began to melt instantly. Tony reached instinctively for his Sig, but found a sword instead. He shrugged, pulled the sword, and prepared to enter the fray when another repeating bell rang. He turned to see where it was coming from, and slipped on the wet wooden floor. "I knew these boots were going to be trouble," he thought, as he fell and hit his head on the cannon support. The last thing he heard as he blacked out was the bell. That damned bell …still ringing.

* * *

Tony woke up with a start and looked around him. The credits were running on TV, he was lying on the floor by the couch, and his phone was ringing and vibrating in front of him. The screen said "Gibbs." The clock said 7:30 p.m.

"Gibbs," Tony said into the phone. "Captain … I'm here."

"Captain?" Gibbs said, with both amusement and concern in his voice.

"What?" Tony said, still trying to get his bearings.

"You called me Captain," Gibbs said, obviously waiting for an explanation.

"Um … sorry, Boss," Tony said, sitting up against the couch and taking as deep a breath as he could. "I … um … I was having a dream." There was silence on the other end of the phone. "We were on the Black Pearl," Tony said, trying to explain. "From Pirates of the Caribbean? You were the captain, as, of course, you would be, and McGee was a monkey; Kate looked amazing … she would have definitely given Keira Knightly a run for her money; so would Abby. You sewed Ducky's mouth shut …"

Gibbs cut him off. "Enough, DiNozzo," he said. "Just how many doses of your meds did you take today?" He sounded worried and annoyed. Mostly annoyed. But a little worried.

Tony blew out another breath, and then coughed a few times as he pushed himself up from the floor to sit on the couch. "We were being attacked by snowmen," Tony said, not realizing just how ridiculous that sounded until after he said it.

"I'm going to send Ducky over," Gibbs said. Tony could see him furrowing his brow and motioning to McGee to get the coroner.

"No, Boss, I'm fine," Tony said. "Don't send Ducky over here. I just had a really vivid dream, that's all. I was watching 'Pirates of the Caribbean' on HBO and I fell asleep with this blanket with snowmen on it and Kate had on this blouse and you had a thing for apples and there were these boots that got really slippery on the wood floor and …"

Gibbs cut him off. "I'm starting to warm up to the idea of sewing someone's mouth closed," he said, dryly.

"Sorry, Boss," Tony said, wincing as if he'd just gotten a headsmack through the phone. "I really am fine. I just need to eat something. I'll go do that now."

"Good idea," Gibbs said. And then Tony heard someone who sounded like Fornell call Gibbs' name. The call disconnected and Tony breathed a sigh of relief.

Tony hung up the phone and heated up some leftover pasta primavera for dinner. He turned off every single electronic device he had – no TV, no Xbox, no stereo …nothing. He folded up the snowman blanket and stuffed it back into the linen closet, not entirely sure if he'd ever be able to look at it again without thinking of the decapitated snowman that Ducky had sent to that great big glacier in the sky. He also threw out the last of the carrots in his fridge. They reminded him of the bloody – well, not bloody, exactly, more like watery – they reminded him of the watery battle on the Black Pearl and snowman parts littering the deck.

Tony ate his dinner in total silence. Between the Xbox, visitors, movies and television, he had obviously had way too much stimulation in the past few days. At 9 o'clock, he decided it was safe to put on some music, and carefully chose a calming Windham Hill sampler. He pulled out the laptop and went through his e-mail, sending his friend in Colorado a synopsis of his dream and a summary of what he thought it all meant. He thought that would go over well at NORAD. Ducky called around 9:30 p.m. to wish him a good night and to make sure he'd fully recovered from what Gibbs had said was "some weird snowman nightmare Tony had about a movie he was watching."

By 10 p.m., Tony was feeling pleasantly drowsy, but was also just a little unsure about whether or not sleep would lead him back to the Black Pearl filled with marauding snowmen. He took his meds and climbed into bed, figuring that even if he did end up back in the Caribbean, at least Kate would be a lot more fun. He laughed into his pillow at the thought of McGee as a monkey, and fell asleep to strains of "Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me …" running through his head.


	6. Saturday

**SATURDAY **

Tony had slept pretty well on Friday night. He'd woken up a couple of times with enough dryness in his throat to require something to up his fluid level, which of course led to waking up one more time for a bathroom run. No matter what he did, his system still had the upper hand.

He hadn't had even a dreamlet that related to the whole pirate experience he'd dreamed about Friday afternoon, for which he was thankful. Gibbs as Barbossa wasn't something he wanted to think too much about. "Then again," he said to himself with a chuckle, "you can't spell 'Barbossa' without 'boss'."

Looking back, Tony realized that it had all started to go wrong when he'd ordered the pizza and Chinese food on Wednesday night and stayed up until 3 a.m. playing video games. While it had seemed like a good idea at the time, that deviation from the "healthy food and lots of rest" regimen had cost him. As much as he hated to admit it, he wasn't quite as resilient as he thought he'd be. Tony was determined to get back on track.

At about 9:30 a.m., Tony rolled out of bed and took a shower and then shaved for the first time in three days. He felt more human already. He made the bed, tossed the towels in the wash, did a once-over of the apartment to get everything back in order, and fixed himself a hot breakfast for a change – an egg white omelet filled with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and zucchini. A couple of pieces of whole-wheat toast and a banana, and he was feeling pretty darn good. He felt energized by his new "healthy" mindset.

An hour later, Tony was at the computer, answering e-mails. He was sending a quick thank you to his frat brothers for the Xbox (or, as he referred to it in the e-mail, "the evil box of sleep deprivation") when there was a knock on the door. As he quickly logged off, he just missed an incoming e-mail from Kate that was titled 'TRYING TO CALL YOU!' Tony flipped the laptop closed and opened the door, both surprised and delighted to see Dr. Pitt and Nurse Emma standing on the stoop.

"Brad, Emma – hey!" Tony said with a smile. "What's up doc?"

Emma laughed, and Pitt rolled his eyes. "Very original, Tony," he said with a grin. "I know it's a cliché to say 'we were in the neighborhood'," Pitt began, "but … we were."

"We're on our way to a consultation at University Hospital, so we thought we'd swing by and see how you were doing," Emma added.

"Come on in," Tony said. "Can I get you anything?"

"No, thanks," Brad said. "We can't stay. I just wanted to make sure you were behaving yourself." He surveyed his patient. "You look good." Then, a small frown. "A little tired, maybe. Are you not sleeping?"

"I was doing pretty good until last night, actually," Tony said, surprised that Pitt had caught the subtle signs. "My throat's been really dry," he continued, "which isn't helping the whole coughing thing, and so I get up to get fluids and then end up waking up a few hours later to pee." Tony glanced at Emma. "Sorry," he said with a smile and a shrug.

"I've changed your catheter bags, Tony," she said with a light laugh.

"Right," Tony said slowly, with a nod and a grin that was somewhere between amused and embarrassed.

"You do sound a little raspy," Pitt said. "Might just be dry air. Tell you what," he continued, as he pulled out his Palm Pilot and wrote himself a note, "there's a medical supply place not far from here. I'll give them a call and have them drop off a humidifier a little later today. Put it in your bedroom – it should help you breathe easier when you sleep."

"Thanks, Brad," Tony said, sincerely. "That'll be great." He looked at Emma, "I probably would have come up with that eventually." She laughed.

"Well, that's why I get the big bucks," Pitt said with a small chuckle. "To think of those things first."

Emma looked at her watch and then glanced up to Pitt. "We need to get going if we're going to be on time." She looked up at Tony. "Sorry," she said.

Tony opened the door. "No problem," he said, as they headed back outside. "I'm just glad you stopped by. It's so seldom you've been able to see me when I'm vertical."

Emma laughed. "Take care," she said. He smiled.

"Remember Tony," Pitt said, in a tone of voice that made Tony listen. "There's no rush to get back to work. You take the time you need."

"Will do, doc," Tony said. They got into the car and waved as they drove off.

Tony spent the rest of the morning doing some laundry, paying a few bills, and sorting through the food in the fridge to get rid of anything that was a color it wasn't supposed to be. He looked at the cards on the refrigerator door and started randomly pulling them off and reading them again. There were cards there that he didn't remember getting. One from Director Morrow, for instance, and one from his father, that had come with the plant. He was struck by how similar the two cards were – 'cut from the same cloth', Tony thought. His confrontations with his father suddenly seemed remarkably like Gibbs' disagreements with the Director. He'd never thought of it that way, until he looked at the cards.

The not-quite-religious-but-really-close card from Kate contrasted sharply with the Halloween-card-that-had-been-turned-into-a-get-well-card from Abby. Ducky and his mother had sent a proper get well wish with a proper poetic sentiment inside, while McGee's card had obviously come from the "Humorous Masculine" side of the aisle. Gibbs, of course, hadn't sent one at all, which was … well … Gibbs – the very absence of a card was the thing that clearly defined him. All the other cards, whether from friends, family or work acquaintances, were just as easy to place. Peoples' personalities were plainly reflected in their card choices, even Bobbi from Personnel and Jorge the gardener. Tony could look at the refrigerator door and see tangible proof of how many people from all facets of his life cared about him. The thought made him smile, and he decided to leave them up for a little while longer.

It was just after noon when Tony finished all of his "apartment stuff," and he was getting a little stir-crazy. It was a cloudy Saturday, not the best for hanging out in the park or spending time outdoors – with his luck, it would start raining and then he'd have the whole "I can't believe you were standing out in the rain while you were recovering from the plague" lecture from Ducky, Gibbs AND Dr. Pitt. But Tony wanted to do something. Anything. He hadn't been to a movie in ages, and figured that would be a good idea; a nice safe amusement. He'd be indoors if it rained, he could doze off unnoticed if he got tired, and … well … you never knew who you might meet at the movies. Not that he had that kind of stamina yet.

He fixed himself a sandwich and some soup while he perused the movie listings. After a short search, Tony had it narrowed down. Originally, he had been eager to see "Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith", but it clocked in at 2 hours and 20 min, and he wasn't sure he'd be able to last that long. He did still have an annoying habit of needing a nap in the middle of the afternoon. Besides, he'd really have to watch and concentrate on "Star Wars," not to mention that he'd have to do a little homework beforehand just to remember where the story left off in Episode II. He decided to go for something a little less labor-intensive. He settled on "Monster-In-Law." A nice light, fluffy comedy without any real socially significant issues that would keep him awake at night. Besides, Tony thought, 'I haven't seen a good Jennifer Lopez movie since 'Gigli'.'

He had a plan, and he was eager to put it into action. He was almost as giddy at the prospect of going outside today as he had been about the prospect of coming home earlier in the week. Every single experience seemed new somehow. He knew it was corny, and he'd probably be scoffing at it if someone else were telling him the same thing, but Tony couldn't help but feel that the whole "Today is the first day of the rest of your life" thing actually had some merit.

He opened the door, savoring the feel of the breeze on his face – this was, after all, his first real post-plague outing. A suddenly cooler burst of air made him shiver slightly, and he turned to see Gibbs, Fornell and six other feds walking up the sidewalk. The opening riff from "The Good, The Bad and The Ugly" ran through his head. "This can't be good," Tony said to himself.

It was just a little too late to turn back into his apartment and pretend he wasn't there, not that it would do much good. If Gibbs wanted to get in, he could get in. Tony also considered breaking into a coughing fit, for the sympathy points if nothing else. He dismissed that as another bad idea. He looked and felt pretty good today, and he didn't need the bad karma. And, well … if Gibbs and Fornell and the accompanying six feds needed him for something, a few coughs weren't likely to stop them.

'Evasion', Tony thought. 'That's the way to go.' And, wishing more than ever that he had an invisibility cloak, Tony pulled his door closed and headed to his car, as if there were nothing odd about eight federal agents on his apartment complex lawn on a Saturday afternoon. Any hopes that Tony had about Gibbs and Fornell getting the hint that he was going somewhere were dashed as Gibbs turned to Tony and barked his name.

"DiNozzo," Gibbs said, in full Marine voice. "Don't even think we believe that you don't see us. Unless, of course, you want to re-do your observation quals."

Tony hung his head and sighed. Then, putting on his most pleasant I've-just-been-interrupted-from-my-first-day-outside-in-weeks-but-as-long-as-the-feds-are-happy-who-cares smile, he turned to the assembled mob. "Hey Boss," he said, stepping away from the car and making it to Gibbs and Fornell in three long strides. "Fornell," he said, nodding to the other man. "Men in black," Tony said, acknowledging the other men standing there.

"DiNozzo," Fornell replied, surprisingly not trying to rework the pronunciation into some version of FBI humor.

"What's up, Boss?" Tony said, noting that it didn't quite have the same ring to it as the amiable "What's up, doc?" he'd given to Dr. Pitt earlier.

"Kate didn't tell you?" Gibbs said, raising his eyebrows in surprise.

"Um … no," Tony said, suddenly realizing that it was the first day that no one from the office had called to check up on him. "I haven't talked to Kate since Wednesday." He looked again at the assembled mob. "What's going on?"

"I told Kate to call you," Gibbs said, with annoyance. "To let you know we were coming."

"I might have forgotten to charge my phone," Tony said with a sheepish look. He honestly couldn't remember putting the phone in the charger since he'd been home. "I've probably got a message from her. I'm sure if you told her to warn … um, to give me a heads up, she did. Either way, you're here now, so … what can I do for you?"

Gibbs and Fornell exchanged a glance. Fornell took a step forward. "We've got a suspect holed up in a house about four blocks from here," he said, glancing back over his shoulder. "Just on the other side of the park. We've been watching him for a while now, but we figure he's going to make his break this afternoon, probably within the next couple of hours."

Gibbs picked up the explanation. "We need a base, Tony," he said. "Someplace nearby but unmarked – somewhere we can set up and manage our intel and wait for them to run." Then his brow furrowed in irritation. "Kate was supposed to tell you so that you'd be expecting us. This wasn't supposed to be a surprise."

"No problem, Boss," Tony said good-naturedly. "I was just going to go to a movie but I can always watch something here. Or … I could help you out …" Tony looked hopefully at Gibbs. While he wasn't ready for a full day in the field, a couple of hours of casework would be a good diversion. Not as good as a catfight between Jennifer Lopez and Jane Fonda, but sometimes you had to take what you could get.

"No," Gibbs said firmly. "You're still on leave. Besides, we won't be here longer than an hour or two." Fornell nodded.

There was a pause as Tony made believe he was thinking about it. He didn't really have a choice, not when he was obviously well enough for an afternoon outing. He could have gotten away with it if they'd have woken him up from a sound sleep and he was hacking up phlegm, but not now. He smiled.

"Mi casa es su casa," said Tony as he opened the door and, with a sweeping motion, invited them all in. The six FBI guys split up – four going to the van to get equipment and the other two taking another car and heading over to relieve the stake-out team at the suspect's house. They were just about finished setting up when there was a knock at the door. Gibbs, Fornell, and the four FBI techs all tensed and went for their guns.

"Expecting someone, DiNozzo?" Fornell said.

"No way to tell, Fornell," Tony said with a rueful grin. "Could be anyone." He wondered what Gibbs and Fornell would do if Nurse Bobbi and the girls had decided to make a return appearance. And then he shuddered at that thought of Gibbs opening the door and aiming a gun at a Jehovah's Witness. Or his father.

Gibbs went to the door and opened it slowly, seeing only a large box on the stoop. He pulled open the door and yelled "Freeze!" A delivery man in a white uniform was walking away from the apartment. He stood stock-still and slowly raised his hands.

"Um … Boss?" Tony said. "That's the delivery guy from the medical supply place. Brad, I mean, Dr. Pitt was sending me a humidifier. For the … um … for the … cough." His voice faded out.

Gibbs lowered his gun, took the box off the porch and slammed the door. A few seconds later, the delivery van squealed off. Tony made a mental note to send an apology to the supply store. Then he took the humidifier to his room before Gibbs decided to have it taken to NCIS and X-rayed.

The afternoon passed incredibly slowly. The suspects weren't moving. No calls, no sightings, no signs of life. The only way the FBI knew they were still in the house were heat signatures. Gibbs and Fornell were getting frustrated, and taking it out on their laptops. They started pacing through the living room until Tony made a comment about the rug, and then they moved out onto the deck. By late afternoon, they were no closer to having the suspects in custody, Tony was out of coffee, and people were getting impatient.

Tony had been sneaking peeks at the files and other evidence piled on his dining room table. Looking at it all with fresh eyes, he managed to find a tenuous connection between one of the suspects and a local police captain. Further investigation revealed that the guys in the house were being kept aware of the stake-out activities happening around them. No one at the local PD knew where Fornell's FBI ops base was, but they all knew it was nearby, so the captain was telling the suspects to hold off on their escape and to wait for a diversion before they moved.

Fornell sent two of the guys at Tony's apartment to find the Police Department mole, which meant that they were a few hands short at base. Tony stepped in, against light objections from Gibbs, who admitted they needed the help now that they had more information. There were a lot more searches to run and more intel to acquire. If the stain at the police department went deeper, they could be involved in something much bigger than they'd initially thought.

Fornell moved out onto the deck to take a phone call, and Gibbs walked over to where Tony was going through files. "That was a good catch, Tony," Gibbs said. "We'd still be watching and waiting without it."

"Thanks, Boss," Tony said, smiling a bit and feeling just a little proud of himself.

"Boss …" Tony began. "Where are Kate and McGee? Why is this just you, Fornell and the FBI?"

"It's the FBI's case," Gibbs said, drinking the last of Tony's coffee. "I'm only here because Fornell figured you wouldn't let _him_ in the door."

Tony laughed, and then the laugh turned to a cough. Gibbs looked at him, warily. "First one today, Boss," Tony said. "I promise."

Gibbs continued to look at his senior field agent with critical eyes until Fornell came back in. Just at that moment, the two agents who had left earlier returned, and the waiting began again. The PD's mole was in interrogation and not talking. The "only an hour or two" operation stretched into the evening. The FBI ordered Chinese, Gibbs went out for coffee, and another of Fornell's assistants came by to pick up food for the guys in the car. More FBI agents showed up, and before long, there were nearly a dozen people in Tony's apartment, counting Gibbs, Fornell and Tony. They were spread out everywhere, and Tony had ceased trying to keep track of what they were all doing. As much as he hated to admit it, missing that afternoon nap was causing him to lose steam pretty quickly.

While he had been initially interested in the case and had begun to feel like his old self again as he looked for leads and ran scenarios, by 9 p.m. Tony was ready to fall over. The little cough he'd had at 3 o'clock had escalated to a point where Gibbs actually pulled him aside to be sure that he was okay.

"We'll get out of here, Tony," Gibbs said, with a tinge of apology in his voice. He could clearly see dark circles forming under Tony's eyes. "You need to get some rest." Tony could see the wheels in Gibbs' head turning, trying to figure out where else they could go that was quiet, discreet, close enough to the suspect, and a quick move. "I would have never had them set up here, but the op wasn't supposed to take this long."

"No, Boss, it's fine," Tony said, swallowing back a cough and getting a bottle of water from the fridge. "I'm just tired, that's all. I'm gonna hit the rack; you guys stay as long as you need to."

"Are you sure?" Gibbs began. Just then, Fornell snapped his phone shut.

"We've got them Jethro!" Fornell said, as he headed for the door. "They're on foot, and headed our way."

Gibbs looked at Tony and smiled a half-smile. He followed Fornell and the other agents out the door, leaving Tony standing alone in the middle of his apartment. There were floorplans, tablets, files, papers, and a laptop on his table and part of the kitchen counter. Empty food containers and soda cans were littered around the dining and living rooms. There were rings from soda cans and coffee cups on every flat surface. The last of the fruit from the guys in Baltimore was gone, although there were a couple of peach pits left in the wooden bowl. Someone had pulled the Xbox out of its hiding place, and the cases for both "Counter Strike" and "Brute Force" were on the couch. Just looking at it all made Tony even more tired. He shuffled over to the kitchen to pull out a garbage bag and a damp rag to start cleaning. Then he abandoned that thought, turned out the light and headed up the hall.

Let the FBI boys clean it up, he thought. He was going to bed.


	7. Sunday

**SUNDAY **

You know those commercials where they show the housewife standing in the middle of the kitchen working at a regular pace while a dozen people all around her are moving at the speed of light around the kitchen? That's how Tony felt, standing in his living room on Sunday afternoon. He felt like he was moving in super-slow motion while everyone else was in constant activity.

But the day hadn't started that way.

Tony had made it to bed by 10:30 p.m. on Saturday night. He'd been lulled to sleep by the soft hum of the humidifier, and he hadn't woken up once with a dry scratchy throat. Sometime during the night, Fornell and the FBI guys had come back to collect their computers and files. Unfortunately, that was all they collected. All the other litter – Chinese food containers, soda cans, coffee cups, just general dirt on the carpet – was exactly where Tony had left it last night. "There are no such things as clean-up fairies in the FBI," Tony sighed.

He poked around in the refrigerator to see if there was any food left – those FBI guys were like vacuum hoses. "Aha!" Tony exclaimed, as he reached into the fridge and found an orange, a tomato and just enough milk to put on his cereal. There were also a couple of eggs. So, he scrambled the eggs with the chopped tomato, had a small bowl of cereal, and chased it all with the orange. Not bad, considering the shambles his kitchen was in. He was definitely going to have to go food shopping.

By the time he had showered and dressed, it was nearly 10:30 a.m. Tony had just pulled out a garbage bag when he heard someone at the door. "I will never complain about an empty apartment again," he vowed. His place wasn't exactly ready for guests, but he couldn't just leave whoever-it-was standing on the stoop, so he opened the door to see the smiling faces of Kate, Abby and McGee.

"We're not too early, are we Tony?" Abby began. "Because I told Kate and McGee that you were still recuperating and that 10:30 on a Sunday morning was prime recuperation time and that maybe later would be better and then Kate said that if you _were_ still sleeping that it meant you maybe weren't feeling all that much better and you'd need us there and if you _weren't_ still sleeping then you might be ready for company … boy, your place is a mess," she said, all in one breath.

Kate looked into the apartment from behind McGee and Abby. She slowly took in the empty food containers, balled-up paper overflowing the wastebasket, apple cores and dirty dishes and snarked, "you've been off a full week and you haven't cleaned once, have you?"

Tony thought about reminding her that Gibbs and Fornell had been there with a band of FBI agents, working on a case, but he really didn't have the energy.

"I'll have this cleaned up in a minute, you guys. Please … come in," he said instead. "I was just about to go food shopping …" he added, hoping one of them would get the hint. They didn't.

"Sweet!" Tony heard McGee say from the living room. He'd apparently found the Xbox.

"It was a gift from my frat brothers," Tony said. His voice sounded a little more raspy than he thought it should. He cleared his throat. "There are more games in the bottom drawer." McGee and Abby started going through them as Kate grudgingly helped Tony clean.

"Really Tony," she said in that condescending tone Tony hated, "if you just did a little bit of basic cleaning every day, you wouldn't find yourself with this backed-up mess at the weekend."

He stopped picking up trash and looked her square in the eye. "For your information, Kate," her name coming out with full emphasis on the "K" and "T" sounds, "I keep my place just as clean as yours." She raised her eyebrows. "Just as clean as … Gibbs'," he amended. "But there were twelve FBI guys in my apartment for nearly nine hours yesterday and this is what they left behind. So I'm sorry if at the end of a really long day, I decided to leave it for the morning because I was tired and sick and preferred to go to bed."

Kate stopped in mid-motion, the cleaner and towels in her hands hovering over the table. She softened considerably. "I'm sorry, Tony," she said as she walked over to him and took the trash bag from his hand and finished the counter and then emptied the smaller trash can into it as well. "I thought that FBI op was only supposed to take a couple of hours. What happened?"

Tony slumped onto one of the stools by the counter. "There was a mole in the police department who was feeding the suspects information about the stake-out, so they didn't move. By the time we figured out that they were getting inside information, it was four hours later, and then it took another three hours or so to get the guy to talk and to smoke them out. Gibbs and Fornell and a batch of assorted feds were here until almost ten."

"I'm sorry," Kate said again. "I didn't mean to …"

Tony waved her off. "Don't worry about it," he said with a small grin. "It's just been a long week." A yell and a hearty laugh came from the living room. "We'd better get in there and find out what the kids are up to," Tony said with a shake of the head. Kate put down the garbage bag and started to follow him.

"Oh no," he said with a sigh. "Bring the bag. The men in black spent some time in here too."

An hour or so later, the apartment was clean – well, it was cleaner than it had been. It's hard to vacuum when two people are spread out on your rug with an Xbox. McGee and Abby were having a grand old time with the new toy, which was really okay with Tony, since that left Kate as the only one he had to entertain, and she was amusing herself by reading all the cards on Tony's fridge.

"You got a card from Director Morrow?" Kate said, with surprise. Tony smiled from his place at the counter.

"Yeah," he said. "I didn't even see that one until after I got home."

"Who's 'Bobbi'?" Kate asked with a smirk. She was holding up a card that had a photo on the front of three kittens with hot water bottles on their heads.

"She's in Personnel," Tony said, waiting for the sarcastic comment that would follow as Kate realized that Bobbi dotted her "i" with a heart. But either Kate was merciful, or she didn't notice, because she moved right on to other cards.

"Wow," she said, continuing down the fridge door. "You have cards from people at NCIS I've never even heard of." She looked at Tony with an expression that was part 'I had no idea you were this popular' and part 'You bought these all yourself and signed them, didn't you?'

"Well, I've been there longer than you Kate," Tony reminded her. "I've gotten to know more of the staff."

"And not all of them are from women," Kate said, in a disbelieving tone.

"Not unless Director Morrow is hiding a pretty big secret," Tony said, with a grin and a wink that made Kate laugh. She reached for another card.

"Are you going to go through every single card on the fridge, Kate?" Tony asked, with a raise of an eyebrow. "If I was going through your mail like that – even stuff in plain sight, stacked on your desk," he added in order to head off the anticipated remark about how his cards were accessible and out in the open, "– you'd have elbowed me in the ribs by now AND made some kind of comment to get Gibbs to yell at me." He didn't really mean it to sound like he was scolding her, but he _was_ a little tired. Kate put the card back on the refrigerator door.

"I'm sorry, Tony," she said, with a light and teasing tone that had just a tiny edge to it. "But you had them all displayed there, so I figured you wanted people to see how many cute women sent you 'Gosh, I hope you're all better soon!' cards."

"If that were true, Katie," Tony said with a tired smile and an edgy tone of his own, "yours wouldn't be up there, now would it?"

Kate's eyes narrowed, and she gave Tony a dirty look. She opened her mouth to speak, but he cut her off.

"I put them there – 'displayed them', as you say – to remind myself that there are people who care about me. I know it sounds silly and self-serving, but sometimes it's little things like that that get you through the day." He sighed and rolled his head, stretching his neck muscles and trying to wake himself up a bit. Kate looked at him and found that she could not form a suitable response. She was even a little misty-eyed at the thought that Tony – who had kept up the silly comments and movie references and bravado through nearly their entire hospital stay – would drop the façade long enough to make a statement like that.

"Tony," she started, not knowing at all where she was going with it, "I …"

He cut her off with a smile as he hopped off the stool with new-found energy. "Let's go see how the kids are doing … they're awfully quiet in there …" He grinned.

Kate knew she'd missed her opportunity, but was still grateful that she'd seen that moment of vulnerability from Tony, even if he didn't necessarily realize that he had shown it. She was saved from her reverie by a knock at the door. Tony's eyebrows went up, in an expression of both anticipation and trepidation. The door opened before either one of them could get to it and Gerald peeked inside.

"Got room for one more?" he said, with a smile. He was carrying a covered dish in his hand.

"If you're carrying food, we do," Tony said with a grin as he walked over to open the door and let Gerald in.

"I am," the M.E.'s assistant said as he removed the covering on the plate with a flourish. "My grandmother's deep dish peach pie. She assured me that it was 'good for what ailed you'," he continued, "although I'm not sure that even Granny-ma's peach pie could stand up against the plague."

"Looks to me like it could," Tony said with admiration. He suddenly realized that he was hungry again. "Crack that thing open!" He reached into the cupboard for some plates and forks, while Gerald grabbed a knife from the sideboard and started slicing.

"Nice precision there, doc," Tony said.

Gerald chuckled. "All of that cadaver practice was bound to come in handy."

The two men had just finished putting pieces of pie on five plates when another knock came on the door. Tony looked to the heavens for strength and opened it to find Ducky, Mrs. Mallard and … the dogs. 'Well', Tony thought, 'at least I haven't cleaned the carpet yet'.

"I hope you don't mind, Tony," Ducky said in a slightly apologetic tone. "But mother was asking about you this morning after we returned from church and would not consider any other activities this afternoon until she stopped by to deliver her good wishes."

Tony's response was pre-empted by Mrs. Mallard's blood-curdling scream. She pointed a shaky finger at the sight of Gerald holding a knife in the kitchen. The scream caused the dogs to begin barking and running frantically around the small room. The noise brought McGee, Abby and Kate running in from the living room. It took a good half-hour (and a glass of Scotch) to calm the elderly woman down, and by the time that Tony had Mrs. Mallard situated in the living room with a nice Hepburn & Tracy comedy on the TV and the dogs had been let outside and brought back in again and installed on the couch cushions next to her, the rest of the guests were gathered around the dining room table, chatting and eating what appeared to be the very last of the deep dish peach pie. Tony looked down at the empty pie tin and then at Gerald.

"Please tell me that you put my piece in the fridge?" he said, with hope in his eyes and a plea in his tone. They all looked up at Tony guiltily.

"I told you he never took a piece!" Abby said, as she punched McGee in the shoulder. "I told you to ask him before you had seconds!"

"I … I'm sorry, Tony," McGee stammered. "I really thought you'd had some when Gerald first came in. Ow!" Abby punched him in the shoulder again.

Tony sighed. "No problem, Probie," Tony said with a weak smile. "I'll just have something …" His voice faded out as he surveyed the refrigerator and realized that he still hadn't gone food shopping.

Suddenly, Tony found himself longing for Terri and Liz to come back and play commandant and nursemaid, respectively, getting everyone out and taking care of him. What he wouldn't give for Terri to come walking through the door with a bag of groceries or for Liz to wander in and tell everyone that, for Tony's well-being, they all needed to leave. He'd tried, earlier, to get in touch with them, but neither one was having a better Sunday than him. Terri had been called to the White House to help deal some last-minute protocol mess for a pair of visiting dignitaries and Liz was stuck working a double shift to cover for another tech out on maternity leave. They had both assured him that they'd much rather be at his place, and they both promised to come back as soon as they could. But that still left Tony on his own with a houseful of people, when all he wanted to do was veg in front of the TV and watch football. Wasn't Sunday supposed to be a day of rest?

Ducky was the first to pick up on Tony's fatigue and despair. "I think, perhaps, I should take mother and the dogs back home," he said quietly. "And then pick up some groceries for you on the way back. Do you think, Gerald, that I could enlist your help?"

Gerald agreed readily, still feeling badly about the peach pie incident. "Of course, Dr. Mallard," he said. Then, to Tony, "do you want to make a list, or should we just wing it?"

"No wings," Tony said, absently.

"We'll just do our best then," Ducky said, nodding at Gerald. Gerald began rounding up the dogs and rousing Mrs. Mallard, who had fallen asleep on the couch. "Katelyn," Ducky addressed Kate, still silent at the end of the table, "would you be so kind as to get Tony's meds from his room or the bathroom …"

"Bathroom," Tony interjected.

"Yes," Ducky continued. "From the bathroom, and perhaps you could also set up the sofa so that he can be made comfortable?"

"Of course, Ducky," Kate said. She looked at Abby and McGee. "Don't you two have some Xbox gear to put away?" She sounded like a mother lightly scolding her children.

And then, suddenly, Tony was in his living room with activity going on all around him. McGee and Abby cleaned up the Xbox and straightened the entertainment center, Ducky and Gerald ushered Mrs. Mallard and the dogs out of the apartment, Kate grabbed Tony's meds along with a pillow and afghan from his room and guided him over to the couch to lie down. As Tony dozed, on and off, he vaguely remembered McGee vacuuming the area rug in the living room while Abby and Kate cleaned the kitchen and straightened his room. By the time he woke up for good, around 4 o'clock, Ducky and Gerald were back with groceries, Kate was in the kitchen helping put dinner together, and Abby and McGee were in chairs in the living room, watching a football game that was on with low volume. Tony knew neither of them liked football, and he glanced over at McGee with a questioning look.

"Abby thought you might want to wake up to something familiar …" he said, with a shrug. "Something you'd probably be watching on a Sunday if we weren't all here."

"Do you want us to go, Tony?" Abby said quietly, with an expression that said "please let us stay, we'll be good" but also had a tinge of "we'll leave if you want us to" in it.

"No," Tony said, with a gentle smile. "I really want you all here." He sat up and tried to articulate what he meant. "I just …" he began.

"You just didn't want us all here, all at once, taking over your apartment and not realizing that maybe a little bit goes a long way?" Kate finished as she came into the living room.

Tony smiled at her. "Close," he said.

"Dinner is served!" Ducky called from the dining room. Tony, Kate, McGee and Abby all made their way to the table. Ducky, Gerald and Kate had whipped up a nice wholesome meal of baked chicken, mashed potatoes, a salad, a few vegetables, and – at Tony's place at the table – one perfect piece of store-bought peach pie.

"It's not the same as Granny-ma's," Gerald said, with a contrite smile, "but I'm still pretty confident about the healing powers."

Tony laughed. "Thanks man," he said. Then he looked across the table at McGee. "Mine," Tony said with a narrowing of the eyes and a make-believe look of challenge.

"No problem, Tony," McGee said, rubbing his shoulder. "I've got a black and blue mark the size of a baseball on my arm that says I won't be eating peach pie for the rest of my life." He shot a look at Abby. Everyone laughed.

The group spent the next hour and a half eating dinner, catching Tony up on what had happened at work during the week, and kidding McGee about his secretive conversation with, as it turned out, his mother. Tony also provided an overview of his week at home – describing everything, from his father's visit to the appearance of Nurse Bobbi and the girls to the Jehovah's Witnesses and the FBI op.

"I cannot believe you are still standing," Gerald said with a laugh.

Abby nodded. "We figured that you'd be sitting by yourself watching movies for five days, bored out of your mind, and that you'd be dying for some company by Sunday!" she said with a shake of the head.

"When all you really wanted was a day alone," McGee added, with an apologetic expression.

"No, Probie," Tony said. "That's where you're wrong. This …" he motioned with his fork at the assembled group all gathered around his dining room table, "this is what I really wanted."

And Kate found herself once again surprised by Tony's sentiment and candor.

Ducky was the one to break the silence, Tony's peach pie reminding him that the almond is also a member of the peach family and how he found that out on a group tour he took once to Spain, a leading almond producing country, where he met a lovely senorita …

Once dinner was over, Abby and McGee offered to clean up, since the others had done the cooking. Ducky, Gerald and Tony sat in the living room watching the end of the game and chatting about nothing in particular. Once everything was clean and put away, all five of Tony's guests took their leave at the same time. It was early evening and Tony would still have a few hours to himself before he headed off to bed.

"Feel better, man," Gerald said, shaking Tony's hand and giving him a half-hug. "Don't want to see you on an autopsy table."

Tony laughed. "I promise. Tell your grandmother thank-you for the pie." He looked directly at McGee. "It was apparently delicious." McGee reddened and everyone laughed.

"I said I was sorry, Tony," McGee said with a smile as he lightly punched Tony in the shoulder.

"No worries, Probie," Tony said. "I'm sure I've stolen enough food from you to more than warrant the payback." He lightly smacked McGee on the head. "Thanks for coming."

Ducky put a hand on Tony's shoulder and looked directly into his eyes. "You will call if you need anything, my boy." It was a statement, not a question. "There's no room here for bravado or stubbornness." Then he smiled warmly.

"I will, Ducky, I promise. Thanks for the shopping and the dinner …" Then Tony laughed quietly. "Tell your mother that I'm sorry about the whole knife, 'Psycho' thing."

Ducky chuckled. "I doubt she even remembers it," he said with a fond smile. "Or at least, she won't until the next time she sees you."

"Duly warned," Tony said.

Abby kissed Tony on the cheek and gave him an all-encompassing but gentle hug. "You be good. I'll be able to tell from blood tests if you're not doing what you're supposed to, and I know ways to get your blood without you even knowing."

Tony's eyes went wide in mock fear. "Yes, ma'am," he said. She took Ducky's arm and the two went out the door to join the others. The only one left was Kate.

"Kate," Tony said, getting serious for a moment. "I don't think I ever thanked you for … you know … for staying … in the hospital with me. I mean, even if you did flat-out _lie_ to me and tell me that I'd infected you, and even if you _did_ tell Nurse Emma about the transsexual thing and even if you ..."

Kate cut him off. "I miss you too, Tony," she said with a smile. She gave him a hug and walked out the door. "Bye, Tony," Kate said, turning back as she got to her car. "Have fun during your second week off. Think of us all, working hard!"

Tony stared at his five colleagues as they drove away. "A second week off," he said to himself. Then, he froze. "A **_second_** week off?"


	8. Monday Again

**MONDAY AGAIN**

Tony stepped into the elevator with Gibbs right behind him. It had taken nearly an hour of talking and negotiating and pleading and convincing on Sunday evening to talk Gibbs into letting him return to work with a week of sick leave left on the books. Gibbs had called both Dr. Pitt and Ducky before agreeing to let Tony back on the job. Pitt had advised against it, worried that Tony was trying to do too much too soon.

Ducky had spent some time on the phone with the other doctor, giving him a bit more insight into the inner workings of Tony's mind – of the agent's mental and emotional state and his need to be back in the office. Ducky filled Pitt in about the activities of Tony's week at home – everything that Tony had told them the night before – and Pitt reluctantly agreed that it certainly couldn't hurt his patient more to be at work behind a desk than it would to be at home and at the mercy of constant visitors and other temptations. The two doctors spent a few minutes discussing ways to "manage" Tony once he returned to work, and then Pitt gave Gibbs the go-ahead to approve Tony's request.

While worried that Tony was pushing it, Gibbs was secretly glad to have gotten the doctor's approval. Truth was, they were heavy in caseloads and Ari was still out there; even if Tony was going to be chained to a desk, he'd have plenty to do.

Tony leaned against the back wall of the elevator car and sighed. Gibbs looked at him with a sideways glance.

"You sure you're up for this." It wasn't a question. Gibbs knew that Tony wouldn't answer truthfully anyway. He just wanted to make sure that someone had at least voiced that opinion in Tony's presence.

_Yes. Please. Don't send me home. People will come. I'll end up attached to the Xbox. I can't take another week.. Let me stay. Let me stay. _

"Never felt better," Tony lied.

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

_Please please please let me stay._

Gibbs took another glance at his senior agent. "You look like crap."

_Yeah? I wonder why. You and a herd of FBI agents show up at my apartment on a Saturday afternoon, totally take the place over, and then leave your crap lying all over the place for me to clean up, not to mention eating my food, and drinking everything in the place, from coffee to Gatorade. I'm surprised you didn't start portioning off my meds. _

"I missed you too, Boss."

_Until Saturday._

"You got another week of sick leave coming Tony," Gibbs continued, tossing the comment over his shoulder, because he'd promised both Pitt and Ducky that he'd give Tony one last chance to change his mind. Suddenly, Gibbs wondered if the FBI had ever gone back and cleaned Tony's place up on Saturday, after the suspects were in custody and the op was complete. He made a mental note to ask Fornell, but his gut told him that they hadn't.

"I was going crazy at home," Tony began.

_Mostly because there were just too many surprises. I need fewer surprises. Some nice, mundane paperwork would be good. Filing. Internet searches. _

"Maybe I'm not 100 percent, but you need me."

_Do not frickin' look at me like that! You had no problem using my instincts and my intel and MY gut to help Fornell get his guy. Who broke that case, huh? Do not look at me like you don't need me._

"OK," Tony continued his line of reasoning. "What about Kate and McGee? They're practically lost without me."

_That might be stretching it a little bit, but they were both pretty darn happy to see me yesterday, once everything calmed down and there was food in the house again. Did I mention that the feds ate all my food? _

Gibbs smiled. "They've gotten more work done the last two weeks than they have all year."

_Well yeah, Sherlock, that kinda figures, doesn't it? Two people doing the work of three people are bound to get more work done than three people doing the work of three people. That makes sense, right? Two divided by three, move the decimal point, carry the one …_

Tony shook his head slightly and focused again on the numbers above the elevator door. God, he was tired. Then the elevator door opened. Tony looked out at the familiar surroundings, saw the buzz of activity and smiled.

He was home.


End file.
